


The Rise of New Valyria

by AgentJoanneMills



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - A Song of Ice and Fire, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Don't expect too much, F/F, I don't think there's a plot here either, Romance, no intrigue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentJoanneMills/pseuds/AgentJoanneMills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>There was no doubt in Daenerys’s mind that Alexandria would be “the princess who rides as swift as the wind, and the thunder of her hooves will be heard across the world, and her enemies will cower before her, and they will weep tears of blood.”</em>
</p><p>The people of Westeros call Alexandria of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name—the Great Unifier of Khalasars and the Commander of the Blood, the Stallion Who Mounts the World—<em>the Young Dragon</em>, after Rhaegar himself, and to her they have given their admiration and respect.</p><p>And the Young Dragon has given her heart to the Golden Griffin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Dragons Reborn

**Author's Note:**

> *Recognizable elements belong to their respective owners.  
> **Work of fanfiction. No copyright infringement intended.  
> ***This is basically me creating my own canon, as far as these two shows are concerned. I am not sorry at all. But please don't hate me for this; if you don't want to read an awful mash-up of an epic and a train wreck (you know which is which, ofc, lol), feel free to close the tab. Thanks.  
> ****This will be, for all intents and purposes, a romance story. We have too much drama and bloodshed to deal with, and I know these two universes have that aplenty, but I decided to stir away from those as much as I can.

 

_The glorious reign of_

_Daenerys of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name,_

_—the Stormborn,_

_Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men,_

_Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm,_

_Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea,_

_Chainbreaker and Mother of Dragons_ _—_

_began in 304 AC,_

_upon the defeat of the Others and the End of the Long Night._

—Maester Samwell Tarly’s _The Dragons Reborn_ , “Preface”

 

****

 

“She is coming, Your Grace,” Arya says, eyes closed, a pleased smile playing on her lips.

Her voice is low, but nevertheless, it is heard, and the hall falls quiet.

Tyrion moves forward in his seat, and the lords and ladies of the court cease all conversation. Missandei, who stands on her Queen’s right side, like always, is looking at Arya in unbridled excitement.

All eyes are now on the Queen.

“Are you certain?” asks Daenerys, her own eyes trained on the Northerner’s face; there is no hiding the hope clearly written in them, despite the cloak of stoicism she wears.

Arya opens her eyes, then, and slate-greys meet the violet stare of the Dragon Queen. “I am,” she affirms. “Nymeria’s children had seen Rhaegal flying over Maidenpool. She’ll arrive soon.”

Daenerys nods once, her lips quirking up.

“That’s good,” Missandei says. “I was beginning to worry.”

“You know the worry is unwarranted,” Arya tells her, eyebrows raised. “That girl could gut a grown man with a finger.”

“I know that, but it is something I cannot prevent,” Missandei defends. “I have been worrying about her since she was a babe, and knowing what she can do now will not stop me from doing so.”

“Apparently so.”

“And why is she coming from Maidenpool, anyway? That’s way up north, and she was supposed to be coming from the seas.”

“Her blood’s a mix of stallion and dragon—no one can ever say what she’s thinking most of the time.”

“Yes, and add to that the stubbornness cultivated into fruition by a certain Wolf’s guidance,” Missandei shoots back, “and we have in our hands a truly unpredictable monarch.”

“Are you two done talking about the heir-apparent in front of her mother and her court, or should we give you a few minutes?” Tyrion pipes up, teasingly. Said court is not hiding their amusement at the usual bickering of the Queen’s handmaiden and the Wolf Knight, whose bluntness with words directly contrasts with the sharpness of her blade. The Queen herself is openly smiling now, for she has always found the banter refreshing—the game of thrones is often filled with double-meanings and implications, and so she sees the candidness as rare and of great import.

Arya just grins rakishly, shrugging. “No, we’re done.”

Tyrion shakes his head, smirking at her. “Missandei did raise a valid point, though. Whatever would our young dragon be doing up there?”

“Well,” the Queen says, “we should perhaps ask my daughter ourselves. Alexandria does tend to be a bit dramatic.”

And just then, they hear the sound of dragon wings flapping, and outside, the shouting begins.

“The princess has landed! The princess has returned!”

Daenerys turns her gaze to the doors.

“Hail, the Commander of the Blood! Hail, the Young Dragon!”

 

****

 

_Alongside her mother, the Dragon Queen Daenerys, and the bastard son of Prince Rhaegar, Lord Commander Jon Snow, Princess Alexandria Targaryen was hailed a saviour of the Seven Kingdoms. Alexandria was the youngest Dragonrider ever recorded in history; she was only nine when she rode Rhaegal and poured forth destruction upon the hordes of Walkers in the Wight War, thinning out the undead armies in a storm of fire._

_Together, the last three children of Valyria brought upon Westeros peace, uniting it once again under the banner of the three-headed dragon, with a strength and magnificence the realm has not seen since Aegon the Conqueror’s rule._

_It is young Alexandria, though, who truly captured the hearts of the people. It is her name that they continue to chant with admiration and respect. For though they are devoted, wholly and truly, to the Queen Daenerys, they have not witnessed her rise into greatness. She came on the lands of Westeros having already achieved immense power and influence from across the Narrow Sea. Alexandria, however, was a child_ _—and they saw this child lay waste to their enemies. They saw this child grow up to become even stronger, become greater._

 _And so to her they pinned the hopes and the love they once gifted to her late uncle Prince Rhaegar. To her they gave the name he once held_ _—“The Young Dragon,” they called him then, and they call her now. She does not look like him, no_ _—she is dark where he was light, her hair a stallion’s brown and his spun white-gold, her eyes the color of the forest and his of the famed Valyrian lilac_ _—but there is no question that she is of Targaryen blood. She has a dragon’s grace and ferocity, and she has the air of power only the Dragonlords ever possessed._

 _She also has the same mastery of the sword Rhaegar had_ _—she received instruction from Ser Barristan Selmy himself, and was also taught the Water Dance of Braavos by the Wolf Knight, Arya Stark. She has exhibited his intellect and gift for politics and diplomacy, as well, having been tutored by Tyrion Lannister, Hand of the Queen._

_The people of the realm have no doubt in their minds that Alexandria’s future reign will be even more prosperous and glorious than her mother’s before her, and that she will usher in the New Golden Age._

—Maester Samwell Tarly’s _The Dragons Reborn_ , “The Young Dragon”

 

****

 

“Alexandria of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Great Unifier of Khalasars and the Commander of the Blood, the Stallion Who Mounts the World.”

The doors to the Great Hall open, and the princess walks in. Her wild brown curls are kept in intricate braids, the designs of which are unseen anywhere else in Westeros, and her face is covered with black war paint, making her forest-green eyes even more brilliant. She is wearing a suit of leathers and furs, and from her shoulder guard flows a red sash that reaches to the ground, and she has both her sword and her _arakh_.

She strides confidently to the front of the hall, every step echoing in the quiet; the nobles are staring at her with bated breaths, all intrigued and watchful.

She stops right before the steps leading up the throne, and drops on her knee, head bowed.

The Queen commands, “Rise, my daughter.”

In one fluid movement, the princess does as she’s told. The queen stands and descends from her throne until she is but a foot away from her child. She remains a step higher; the young dragon has grown some more, making her tower several inches over the queen, and this is the only way Daenerys can remain taller than her. It makes the Dragon Queen both proud and wistful; her daughter is growing up much too fast, and she would have liked for time to stop and let her spend a few more innocent years with her babe.

Alas, it is not to be so, and thus all that is left for the Queen to do is reach out, tip the princess’s chin with a finger, and say, “Welcome home, Alexandria.”

 

****

 

_In 295 AC, months after the death of the good Khal Drogo, Daenerys Stormborn, rightful queen of Westeros, gave birth to a daughter._

_It was a surprise, for she was expecting a son, the Stallion Who Will Mount the World._

_However, the child_ _—though lacking of the classic Targaryen features_ _—was everything the Khaleesi wanted._

_The Khaleesi named her daughter Alexandria, derived from a word in an old language used in ancient lands beyond even Asshai-by-the-Shadow that means “Defender of Men.”_

_For there was no doubt in Daenerys’s mind that Alexandria would be “the princess who rides as swift as the wind, and the thunder of her hooves will be heard across the world, and her enemies will cower before her, and they will weep tears of blood.”_

 

—Maester Samwell Tarly’s _The Dragons Reborn_ , “Birth of the Princess”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As stated, this is a prologue. More characters will appear. :))


	2. The Pride of the Lions

 

**Ten Years Ago—304 AC**

_Hear Me Roar_. Family words—his family’s words. House Lannister, of the gold-and-red banners, of the roaring lions.

 _A Lannister always pays his debt_ , they said.

But the debts had been too high, the price too steep to be paid. The ledger dripped with red, and no amount of gold could ever wash away the stain.

 

****

 

There was nothing left but rubble and ash.

No sooner had the last of the wights been put down than the Wolves of Winter marched to the western stronghold and extracted payment for a night of carnage years ago, with the she-wolf leading the charge.

The Dragon Queen had allowed it, for obvious reasons, and the Lannister Imp, Hand of the Queen, did not resist his liege’s decision. He himself even chose to come with the she-wolf to see this through—to, once and for all, end the war between Lions and Wolves that had been going on for nearly a decade— while the Targaryens stayed in the North to marshal the surviving forces, heal the wounded, and burn the deceased—to make sure that the dead would remain dead, this time.

 

****

 

There was no mercy left in them to give, and no one who would have deserved it, anyway.

 

And soon the den of the lions was no more.

 

Casterly Rock succumbed to Northern fury, and with it fell the golden children of the golden house.

 

****

 

“Lannister,” the she-wolf greeted him with a slight tilt of her head as she entered the tent.

He was drinking Dornish merlot, one of the few extravagances he allowed himself during the war. Wine flowed in his veins better than blood ever did, and he supposed it was the one thing he had in common with his sister.

May her soul burn for eternity in the Seven Hells, where it belonged.

“Stark,” he returned, and there was a sick satisfaction that bloomed in his chest when he saw her clothes splashed with the blood of his kin. She didn’t see a need to wash it away before seeing him, did not see a cause for false appeasement, and for that he respected her more.

They had both been in the Dragon Queen’s service for some time, and though they were supposed to be natural enemies, as the annals would possibly dictate, they both shared hatred for the lions, at any rate, and had thus forged some sort of friendship instead.

War did make for strange bedfellows.

“We found defectors,” she said, and the line of her mouth was grim, and behind her eyes peeked the shadow of the god she had learned to worship. “Your House’s, it seems.”

“I do not have a House anymore. You made sure of _that_.” There was no malice in his tone. “I mean, I hope you did,” he added, frowning.

She huffed. “The Lannisters of the Rock are not the only Lannisters. _You_ know that.”

He sighed, for yes, he did know. “Lannisport. Of course.” He raised his goblet to take another sip.

Arya quickly walked to him and snatched it away, ignoring his protest. She kept it out of his reach, setting it on a corner table. “They wish to talk to the only living Lion of the Rock.”

At that he raised his eyebrows. “You’ve brought them here?” he asked, skeptical.

“It might be my instinct to rip apart every lion, Tyrion,” she said by way of answer, “but I do know leniency pays off. If I didn’t, I won’t even be talking to you at all.”

“Ah, point taken,” he said. “And we both know I am extremely grateful that you let me live. As are many whores, who would’ve been inconsolable, should I have met my demise.”

She scoffed. “Dany would have been mad if I killed her best advisor.”

“True.”

There was silence, then, and Tyrion would have normally felt the need to fill it with babbling, nonsensical or not, but the circumstances were definitely _not_ normal, and he wanted to enjoy the lack of words for once.

He looked at the wolf from the corner of his eyes, waiting to see if she would break, but, of course, the she-wolf wore silence like a suit of armour, and it wasn’t any surprise that she just kept her mouth shut, arms crossed, patiently waiting for him to speak.

They could hear the soldiers outside, the crackling of fire, the howl of the wind.

He sighed again; his heart felt heavy, and he could feel a headache coming. “What do they want?” he finally asked.

“Ask them yourself,” Arya told him. “The only reason I even delivered this message is because I believe the decision to end your cursed bloodline is one I should share with you.”

“And why is that?”

“We were both pawns in the grand scheme of things, Imp. We’ve been robbed of our choices before, but now,” she shrugged, “I suppose we can make our own.”

 

****

 

He stared at the fire for a long time after Arya left him to his devices. His thoughts were all over the place, and he couldn’t find a sliver of peace. Memories from his past came to haunt him—images of his dead father blaming him for the fate of his dead mother, his dead sister blaming him for the fate of her dead son, his dead brother blaming him for the fate of his dead family.

Dead. Every one of them.

He was all that remained.

 

And lions . . . lions couldn’t survive alone, could they?

 

****

 

Black Rat, one of the Unsullied generals who came to aid the she-wolf’s Northern army, led him to the tent presumably housing the defectors for the moment.

“Are they chained?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They no fighters,” Black Rat answered. “They would not long last if they try escape. We kill they fast.”

“I see.”

 

****

 

The tent was dark, and only one torch was lit.

Before it stood a single form, and Tyrion was at first confounded.

“Tyrion,” the figure said, and relief rang clearly in that familiar voice.

Tyrion took a few more steps and stared up at him, trying to discern if his eyes were not playing tricks. “J-Jakob?”

“It’s me,” Jakob confirmed, and his blue eyes twinkle in the dark, smiling brightly.

“I-I thought you . . .  I thought you were with Jaime.”

“I was,” his smile dimmed, and he shot him a sympathetic look.

“But now you’re here.” Jakob’s blond hair was sticking up every which way, giving him a rumpled look. His silk shirt was torn in places, as were his pants, but he was there in front of him, and he did appear to have all his limbs.

“He made me leave. Asked me to gather as much as I could, and to look for you.”

“I’m sorry, what? Asked to gather as much . . . ?”

“As much of _us_ , who were not involved with the war Uncle Tywin waged.” Tyrion could see the weariness in Jakob’s countenance, despite trying very much to hide it. “Jaime never wanted a war either, Tyrion. And he knew . . . he knew you would understand.”

“Understand what, exactly?” Tyrion’s voice was pained. “Understand that the Kinslayer would do a favor for the Kingslayer, as a last show of camaraderie? Is that it? He wants me to harbour fugitives and plead for their lives before the Dragon Queen?”

Jakob didn’t answer, and instead, he turned and called over his shoulder, “Come out now.”

There was a shuffle of feet, and from the dark emerged several more people.

The light from the torch was just enough for Tyrion to see that they were all Lannisters, and that they were all tired and afraid. They were all, too, hunched, with no trace of the lion’s pride in them, and it was as if no more roars could be torn from their throats.

His gaze, though, was especially drawn to a little figure that had latched itself to Jakob’s leg, tiny fingers grasping at his pants. Wide blue eyes stared at Tyrion’s mismatched ones, and rich golden locks tumble down little shoulders.

“Oh,” Tyrion breathed out, “is this—?”

“Yes,” a woman beside Jakob said. “She’s ours.”

Tyrion looked up the woman, “Abigail.”

She smiled in acknowledgment, albeit jadedly. “This is our daughter, Clarke.” She cleared her throat. “The last Lannister child.”

“A lone lion is as good as dead,” Jakob said, his hand patting his youngling’s golden curls soothingly. “We are not wolves, Tyrion, but I think it’s time we stop being lions, too.”

 

****

 

“Your Grace,” Bran said, “I have received word from Arya.”

The Dragon Queen was sat on the lord’s station at Winterfell, having supper, but upon hearing the greenseer’s words, she immediately redirected her attention. She did not question how Bran got a message from his sister—who was, as far as she knew, with Tyrion in the west, finishing what her brother had started—the Starks had mystic in their blood, same as her, and she could not deny the magic in the abilities the Starks and their direwolves possess any more than she could deny her dragon’s blood. So instead of asking for explanations, she asked, “Are they all right?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Daenerys nods. “Go on then.”

“The campaign has been successful,” Bran began his report, in that straightforward manner he had. “Casterly Rock has been crushed, and the lions’ pelts are scattered in their den.” A frown marred his features. “But those from Lannisport . . . they defected from their kinsmen, and they are now asking for solace under the Dragon Queen’s rule.”

“Traitors breed their own,” Daenerys remarked, dryly. “And why, precisely, am I to grant them mercy?”

“They had nothing to do with the rebellion, then or now,” he answered. “And . . . there’s a child. A golden child. She’s . . .” Bran hesitated, and there was a faraway look on his face. “. . .  she’s special. The last Lannister child.”

“What’s special about the last child born of that House?”

“A foresight, Your Grace,” Bran said, and his voice is tinged with equal parts apprehension and anticipation. “She’s going to be instrumental in forging a path of which legends are made.”

 

****

 

“In the name of Daenerys of the House Targaryen . . .” Tyrion’s voice was carried by the western winds, strong and clear. Every title of the Queen’s that he invoked seemed to latch themselves to those who heard them, and even in her absence at that moment, they all felt the heat of dragon’s breath. “. . . I, Tyrion of the House Lannister, Hand of the Queen, do hereby rename you Griffin, and from the ashes of your old House shall rise a great one, and it shall be the guardian of the Westerlands.”

Jakob of the House Griffin rose from the charred ground of the Rock, a white-and-red cloak draped on his shoulders. And before the Hand of the Queen, the queen’s most loyal knight, and her warriors as his witnesses, he spoke his House’s words for the first time.

“We must come together,” he said, and behind him unfurled House Griffin’s standard—a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, a red shape upon a field of white.

 

****

 

“Clarke,” Abigail chided, “please sit still or I won’t give you sweetmints.”

The child was sufficiently affected by the threat that she immediately ceased all movement. Abigail let out a thankful breath, and she continued brushing her daughter’s hair.

The quiet that pervaded them was heavy, and Clarke, young as she was, felt her mother’s grief.

“Mother,” Clarke began, her hands fiddling with her glove’s loose thread, “why are you sad?”

Abigail’s hands falter in their task, and she ached for the innocence her child possessed.

_Gods willing, may it not be taken away._

“I am not sad, sweetling.”

“Father said lying is bad,” Clarke told her, matter-of-fact. “He said the gods don’t like lying and that we should always tell the truth so the Seven won’t get mad.”

“What your father said is true,” Abigail agreed softly, resignedly.

“Then why are you lying about being sad? Aren’t you afraid of the gods?” Clarke had turned around to face her, then, and her blue eyes were bright and curious, her little forehead scrunched up in concern, and Abigail chuckled wetly, tears forming in her own eyes.

“And why are you much too smart for your own good?” Abigail murmured, more to herself than to the child. She shook her head, and she cupped her daughter’s face in her hands. “You know I love you, right, sweetling?”

“Yes, Mother.  I love you too.”

“And your father loves you.”

Clarke nodded.

“Then I hope you also know that whatever happens, that won’t change, all right?”

“Is something happening, Mother?”

“Yes,” Abigail stared straight into her daughter’s eyes. “You’re going to live with the Dragon Queen.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things would be so much _easier_ if English were my native language lol.  
>  And Black Rat speaks in broken Common Tongue, so if his sentences read awkwardly, it’s because they’re meant to be that way. There is only so much instruction Missandei can give the Unsullied, after all.  
> And I know you people want the Clexa development and I do too but hey gotta lay the foundation, yes?  
> Ste yuj. :))


	3. I. The Return of the Heir

 

Clarke Griffin shifts in her large bed, dreams of forests and deserts and gardens drifting in and out of her sleep-addled mind. She is in her designated quarters in the Royal Apartments of Maegor’s Holdfast, an honour given to her by the Dragon Queen herself on her name day nearly ten summers ago, right after she was taken away from her parents to be fostered in the Red Keep.

 

_“Quarters fit for a princess,” Uncle Tyrion informed her then, as he was leading her to what she would soon learn to call her home._

_“I am no princess,” she said, sounding anxious about claiming something traditionally reserved for members of the royal family and their consorts. She was well aware that she was neither royalty nor a consort_ _—she’s a child, a griffin, and she was scared, trapped as she was in the dragons’ lair._

 _“You are no princess, true,” a soft voice beside her whispered, so that only she would hear. She turned her head a bit, and then forest-green eyes held her sky-blue ones captive, and her hand was captured in a gentle and reassuring grip. The Dragon’s Heir smiled at her, and told her in a tone full of adoration that made Clarke’s young heart beat like an eagle’s wings, steady and fast, “But you are to be_ my _queen.”_

 _Clarke returned the smile, and as she tried to calm her heart_ _—which felt full to bursting with some emotion yet unnamed_ _—she forgot why she felt scared in the first place._

 

****

 

She awakes with a start. She sits up hastily, her eyes scanning the room carefully for anything amiss. There’s none, and she breathes a sigh of relief, though she’s quite sure nothing will harm her here, anyway—the caution is borne of habit, more than anything else.

She briefly considers going back to sleep, but she knows it will be only minutes until she’s summoned to break her fast with the Queen, or, if her particular services in diplomacy are needed, with a lord or lady whom the Queen finds too tiresome to deal with herself.

She stands up and resolves to prepare her bath herself. Just as she is pulling her robe, however, a knock resounds on her door—once, a pause, then twice in quick succession—and she knows her handmaiden has somehow, again, known she’s awake and has found her way to her rooms without needing to be summoned.

This is confirmed when a voice chirps, “My lady?”

Swallowing back a groan, she calls out, “Maya?”

There’s a faint giggle, and Clarke knows she has not been successful in completely masking the note of frustration in her voice. “You know it is, my lady.”

“Yes,” she sighs, “but I was hoping I was wrong.”

“You aren’t,” the voice cheerfully informs her of the obvious fact, “so may I come in now?”

“Yes,” Clarke says. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

The door promptly opens and in walks a raven-haired, pale-skinned girl. Maya is of Clarke’s age, just about—a lady from House Westerling, one of the vassal houses House Griffin appropriated as its own after House Lannister’s downfall. She has been sent to the Red Keep to attend to the young heiress of Brightclaw, the new fortress being built upon the ashes of Casterly Rock. It still hasn’t been finished, for there are too much debris to clear out and too few men left to do the job, but the construction _is_ progressing, and last she heard, her father has even managed to finally fulfill his childhood dream of building a high tower that will dwarf even the old Rock and will overlook Lannisport, like a mighty beacon. He’s been calling it Polaris, after a celestial body he’d read about in one of those ancient books buried in the Lannister stronghold.

“Good morning, my lady,” Maya greets with a curtsy. “You have slept well, I trust?”

“I did,” Clarke nods, watching as the other girl then goes and rummages through her wardrobe to lay out her clothes for the day. “How do you always know when I’m awake?”

Maya glances at her in amusement, putting down a set of smallclothes on her bed before proceeding to look for her outerwear. “Secret of the trade, my lady,” she says by way of answer, just as she’s done the previous dozen times Clarke has posed that same question.

Clarke shakes her head, grumbling under her breath in a way not befitting of a highborn lady, but Maya’s been a friend, someone she knows won’t betray her confidence, and so she has no qualms about putting her guards down, at least for a bit.

Maya merely laughs at her admittedly childish behavior. She gives a soft hum when she sees something acceptable amongst Clarke’s wide range of court dresses. She spins around, revealing her find—a pale-blue summer dress embroidered with delicate designs only ever seen in the Reach—and she carefully hangs it by the post of Clarke’s bed and smooths over imagined creases. “I will draw you a bath now, my lady,” she tells her, and then she scurries past her lady to the said bath.

Clarke sits idly by as she waits for Maya to finish, and in the quiet that follows, her mind then wanders to the snippets of memories that had invaded her dreams earlier. She smiles, remembering greens and flecks of gold and brown silken locks, and just like all those years ago, her heart hammers inside her chest, rattling her ribs in a way that makes her ache, makes her breathing stutter, as if her lungs has forgotten they were supposed to bring her air, and instead, all that flows are thoughts of _her_.

When she was a child, this strange, aching sensation perplexed Clarke to no end.

But now . . . now she understands it for what it is. She has for quite some time.

She does not dare name it, though, because she fears for what would happen should the words be said aloud.

Besides, it’s not like it matters.

 

Clarke is _just_ a griffin. Noble of blood, without a doubt, but simple nobility is not enough to really deserve a dragon’s attention.

And furthermore, the one who holds Clarke’s heart is not _just_ any dragon.

 

The one who holds Clarke’s heart . . . well, _she_ ’s the greatest dragon of all.

 

****

 

“They say you’re being courted,” Maya says in a low murmur as she brushes Clarke’s blond hair.

Clarke is sitting in front of her vanity, and she flicks her blue eyes to meet Maya’s gaze in the mirror. “Who’re _they_?”

“The court is full of gossip, my lady. If I were to tell you every name, we’d be here all day.”

“You make a good point.” Clarke barely represses a sigh. “And they are not wrong.”

Maya raises an eyebrow, questioning, and Clarke feels uneasy beneath the critical stare.

“What?”

Maya sets down the brush, and she begins with the braids. “Nothing.”

Clarke makes a disbelieving sound. “That does not sound like _nothing_.”

“Well,” Maya shrugs, and her nimble fingers does not pause in her task, “I thought you were spoken for, way before all this courting business.”

“What makes you say so?” Clarke tries for nonchalance, but Maya’s quiet _tsk_ tells her she does not buy it in the slightest.

“Your staunch refusal to talk about anything related to weddings and betrothals, for one.” She finishes up Clarke’s braid with a silk ribbon the same shade as her dress. “For another, I don’t think that little lord from Dorne is really your fancy.”

“I’d hardly call Finn little. Naïve, maybe, and a bit conceited, but not _little_.” Clarke turns on her seat and smiles up at Maya. “And what, pray tell, do you think would be my fancy, anyway?”

“The Young Dragon,” is Maya’s straightforward reply, and Clarke’s smile disappears as abruptly as it came.

“Oh.”

“That is not a denial.”

“Nor is it a confirmation.”

“My lady,” Maya begins, in a tone akin to that used when talking to a particularly willful child, “that blush coloring your cheeks is enough confirmation as it is. No words can provide as strong an evidence as what the body says, after all.”

At this Clarke scoffs, though, she notes with irritation, she feels her face heat up, thereby effectively supporting Maya’s statement. “It is nothing,” she asserts.

“Ah, that does not sound like nothing,” Maya throws her words right back at her.

Clarke narrows her eyes in a glare. “Mockery is not the product of a strong mind, Maya.”

Maya regards her shrewdly, and Clarke knows she’s caught herself in her own trap. “I agree, it’s not,” the handmaiden says, “though that is not a lesson you learned in the Westerlands either, is it?”

Clarke’s mouth opens in indignation, but before she can formulate a response, she feels a change in the air, and she _knows_.

Clarke always knows when _she_ ’s near. Her heart starts its insane rhythm, and she feels as though she’s going to battle. A wide grin has found its way on her face, and she knows she looks like a fool, but she does not care, not in the slightest. All the annoyance she’s been feeling has now fled, and what remains is an indescribable warmth that she has always associated with _her_.

And so Clarke knows _she_ has arrived before hearing the flapping sound of a dragon’s wings.

Clarke hurriedly looks at the window, then, and she just about catches the tips of green wings slicing across the azure sky before disappearing from her sight.

The smallfolk’s joyous salutation for their hero echoes through the air.

Clarke’s eyes find Maya’s, and Clarke cannot find it in herself to be upset at the smugness reflected there.

 

Lexa’s home— _at long last_ —and to Clarke, right now, that’s all that matters.

 

****

 

“For someone who insisted that what she feels is nothing, you sure do act way too restless, my lady.” Maya sounds as if she’s having fun watching Clarke pace across the floor of her solar, nearly buzzing with agitation, and at this point, Clarke is indeed too wound up to even consider giving her a reprimand.

Clarke’s mind is a web of thoughts she cannot hope to untangle. She feels chaotic inside, addled and agitated, and there’s a tug in her subconscious that is urging her to go down and race across the halls of the keep and find the one her heart seeks. She tamps it down as firmly as she can, trying her best to not succumb to the questionable impulse.

The Young Dragon, who has been on the other side of the Narrow Sea for the past four years, has finally returned. The people of King’s Landing are still chanting their welcome in the streets, and it seems they aren’t inclined to stop any time soon. Not that Clarke blames them.

Lexa . . . the princess . . . _no_ , Her Grace is beloved of all, and she inspires in everyone she meets a certain kind of devotion that any monarch would envy. And after so long an absence, her adoring public are, of course, thrilled that their future ruler is back on Westerosi soil. The Dragon Heir’s very presence in her realm provides a significant boost to her people’s morale.

Clarke is familiar with the concept. After all, she feels that way too. And she is certain the Dragon Queen’s own disposition will be improved as well; not that the Queen’s been ill-tempered, mind, but one cannot help but notice her despondence, something naturally felt when a mother is separated from her child.

Clarke understands that the Dragon Heir’s return will change . . . well, _everything_ , and she doesn’t know if she’s prepared for her life to be turned upside down again.

She doesn’t know if she ever will be.

But no matter the case, the gods has already decided for her, and they do not care for whether she’s ready or not—a muffled voice calls from outside her door, and Clarke feels as if time stopped.

“Her Grace Alexandria, Princess of Dragonstone, my lady.”

Clarke freezes, and it’s as if every bone in her body refuses to listen to her brain—not that it would have done much good, anyway, since she’s pretty sure her brain has forgotten to function.

And before she can even gather enough composure to not seem like an oaf, Maya rushes to open the door.

And Clarke’s world . . . it has righted itself, and her lungs remembered how much they like the taste of air, and she can _breathe_ , and everything— _everything_ — is in much sharper focus.

 

And when she meets those forest-green eyes, Clarke finally, _finally_ , feels alive.

 

****

 

“Clarke.”

That voice—has it always been this rich, washing over her in tender waves, blanketing her with a dragon’s heat? And those eyes—have they always been that brilliant, so full of life? Have they always been so arresting, rendering Clarke a thunderstruck mess with nary a glance?

Clarke gulps, and she thinks she might have unwittingly swallowed her own heart in the process, just so she could keep it from actually leaping out of her body. “Your Grace,” she manages to croak out, aware of the eyes upon them both, and then she shakily lowers herself in a curtsy, some leftover wit reminding her of propriety.

She’s staring at the ground, or more specifically, at the princess’s boots. She vaguely registers hearing an authoritative “Leave us,” and there’s a shuffle of feet and a shutting door.

And then those boots are taking steps towards her.

“Stop that.” It’s not a command, but a plea.

And Clarke understands what Lexa’s asking, the meanings hidden between the lines—they always have communicated better with each other, understanding truths veiled in pretty words and proper courtesies, and Clarke only hopes that hasn’t been changed by the time they spent apart. She straightens up, then, and she stares into _those_ eyes again, and as her control breaks, her own eyes are helpless to drink the sight of _Lexa_ in.

She’s leaner now, and her skin is sun-kissed, and she looks more powerful—she always has, but this is different. The years spent in Essos have done her well, giving her a lethal grace quite different from the one she had before. The lines on her divine face are sharper, and hazily, Clarke thinks perhaps Lexa’s jawline can be used as a weapon of sorts—it’s so defined, as are her cheekbones, and does her lips seem fuller now, too?

A tongue peeks between those full lips, wetting them, and Clarke follows the movement absently.

“ _Clarke_.”

She starts at the rasp with which her name is spoken, now, and Clarke at last remembers where she is and who she is with. “I—”

“You—”

And they both stop, and in the spaces between the seconds wherein they just look at each other—their eyes conveying everything for which they cannot find the right words—they share their first smile in four gods-forsaken years.

“You first,” Clarke says. She adds, lightheartedly, eyes dancing, “Your Grace.”

“Shut up,” Lexa grins—and really, has she always been this glorious?—“you’ve never called me that.”

“I was insolent as a child,” Clarke admits.

“No,” Lexa shakes her head. “You’re . . . you.” She clears her throat, and she shifts on her feet, seemingly uncomfortable—something rarely seen by the realm, if at all, but Clarke has seen every side of Lexa. “What I meant to say was, you . . . you’ve grown.”

Clarke looks at her askance. “I’ve . . .  grown?”

“I . . . yes, you have.” Lexa clears her throat again. “And you were saying?”

Clarke is frowning at her, clearly not believing what Lexa said in the least, but she does not push. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Is this . . . strange for you? Being back?”

“No,” Lexa is quick to say. And Clarke really is not prepared for what comes next. “Since I left, never has a day gone by when I didn’t think of being with you again.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE FLUFF OKAY NO ONE CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME  
> okay in case some of you didn’t notice this would hop from present to past to present again depending on what facet of their relationship is to be highlighted in a particular chapter ok? ok great it’s fluffy and shit but plot’s gonna pick up soon-ish watch out 
> 
> Ste yuj.


	4. The Wolves’ Keep

 

**Ten Years Ago** **—304 AC**

 

It’s not like Clarke had never been outside Lannisport. In fact, as young as she was—nearly seven summers old (not that her mother thought _that_ mattered much, to her annoyance)—she had seen her fair share of holdfasts and lands way beyond her ancestors’ home. She had played beneath the shades of Storm’s End and had seen the rocky grounds of the Vale, and she remembered being daunted by the affluence of King’s Landing, once.

She had, however, never been to the North.

She had heard stories, of course, but those tend to make her wary of it rather than enthrall her to the cold terrain. She knew the North was the largest territory in the Seven Kingdoms, almost dwarfing all the other six combined (although according to her father, that was an exaggeration, since the lands beyond the Wall did not actually fall in the North’s dominion). And she knew that for a thousand years, it had been ruled by the Kings and Queens of Winter—the wolves whose name were _Stark_.

Clarke was born a Lannister, and she was raised accordingly. She was taught that lions had defeated wolves and that wolves were no more than rabid dogs that had to be put down, anyway; they were traitors to the Crown, and they deserved punishment for it. As a mere child she was spared the details, but she was told enough to understand that the animosity was unreservedly mutual. Theirs was a rivalry that would not end unless one or the other was completely eradicated.

She always thought the lions would be the victors in this feud that had claimed countless lives; she grew up believing in her house’s golden manes and sharp claws and thunderous roars, after all, and she had always found solace in their red-and-gold cloaks.

Never would she have foreseen that the wolves would come in a storm of ice and fire—their silver coats glittering under the moonlit sky, their teeth and claws as sharp as Valyrian steel, and their howls feral with winter’s breath. And when these beasts with snow in their veins had finished slaying her kinsmen, Clarke’s general idea of the wolves became her particular reality.

 

****

 

Clarke would be lying if she said she wasn’t completely terrified of the notion of meeting the Wolf Knight.

According to the smallfolk, Arya Stark was the embodiment of the North itself, a true child of Winterfell. She had the lines of Ned Stark’s face, along with the wolf’s blood of his ancestry. But Arya’s beast within had been lost for a while—and then found again, better and harsher and stronger. The she-wolf had spent a considerable amount of time in Essos; she had been trained by the Faceless Men of Braavos, an elite group of assassins that enforced the rule of _Valar Morghulis_ , and was said to be a prodigy of their art of killing. It was uncertain how she came to be free from their service—something that hadn’t happened before or since—but it was during that period that she met the Dragon Queen, and was later knighted.

With such wild tales surrounding her, Clarke was imagining a true monster. But when Arya Stark finally charged into the westerlands with her army, what Clarke saw was a lithe warrior whose blades always struck true and whose steel-grey eyes shone with the burden of her entire House. And, unlike what the stories would have anyone believe, she _was_ capable of showing mercy.

Cerwyn men had found Clarke, her parents, and a few other Lannisters who had nothing to do with the wars started by Lord Tywin and had just wanted the bloodshed to end. They surrendered willingly, heads bowed in supplication and white handkerchiefs held tight in their hands, and they only asked for a chance to talk with the one in charge.

As Stark bannermen, it was the Cerwyns’ duty to report to their liege of any defectors or yielders, and so the lions were taken into a poorly lit tent to be guarded by Unsullied soldiers whilst the Northmen tied up loose ends in Casterly Rock and ensured that no more remained.

And so it was that the Wolf Knight found them.

Clarke’s father had pled for their lives beneath the Stark’s bloodied sword, and Arya regarded them as a predator would regard its prey—weighing if they were worth the trouble or if she was just wasting her time.

And then, the steel-eyed wolf met Clarke’s wide stare. Clarke wanted to look away, truly, but there’s something sad and anguished within the wolf that called out to her, and against her better judgment, she took a step forward. Arya raised an eyebrow, and Clarke heard her mother’s alarmed gasp, but she didn’t pay it much mind. She took step after step until she’s in front of the Wolf Knight.

Then, to the surprise of everyone present, Arya Stark knelt before Clarke and gently patted blonde curls. “You’re a courageous girl,” she said, and she sounded impressed.

 _Thank you_ , Clarke wanted to say, _I want to be brave for Mother and Father, the way you seem to be_ , but what came out was, “And you’re a killer.”

Arya Stark nodded without missing a beat. “I am.”

“Clarke, pleas—” her father began, but Arya raised a hand to silence him.

“Will you be killing us, then?” Clarke asked.

Arya cocked her head to the side, eyes kindly studying Clarke’s face. And it was as if she saw what she was looking for, because the next thing they knew, she was smiling—a genuine smile, it seemed, for Clarke could almost glimpse it as the light chased away the demons haunting the wolf. “I won’t.” Then Arya stood and coolly turned her attention to Jakob Lannister. “I’ll tell Tyrion of your request. Your fate rests on him now, and should he choose to spill your blood and end your line, let it be known that it would not be on my hands.”

“I—that’s all I ask, gods, a chance to talk to him,” Jakob said. “Thank—”

“Don’t,” Arya cut him off. “I am not doing this for you.” And with one final glance at the blonde young girl, Arya left.

 

****

 

Arya Stark was a person of her word, it would appear, for later, Uncle Tyrion himself strode into the tent, and it was the beginning of the new era.

 

****

 

“You’re going to live with the Dragon Queen.” Her mother’s words were almost lost in the night, but Clarke heard them loud and clear.

“What?” She frowned. The Dragon Queen was said to have burned men, women, and children alive, and she’s the daughter of the king who killed many of Clarke’s own family. Clarke didn’t want to live with someone like that. “Why would I live with a dragonspawn?”

“Sshhh.” Abigail put a finger on Clarke’s lips. “Do not speak that way, Clarke.”

“But it’s true.” The words were muffled, but were understood just the same.

“It’s not that simple.”

Clarke’s frown deepened. She grasped her mother’s wrist to put it away from her face. “Aegon the Conqueror was the Dragon. The Dragon Queen is his descendant. That makes her a dragonspawn, right?” What’s not simple about _that_?

Her mother sighed. “Sweetling, you don’t just call the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms a dragonspawn. She might see it as a sign of disrespect.”

“But Aunt Cersei’s the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, wasn’t she, until these usurpers killed her?”

Abigail flinched, and her face visibly paled. She grabbed Clarke by her shoulders; there was a fearful intensity in her eyes that Clarke had never seen before. “Please don’t say that ever again, Clarke,” she said, voice quaking with urgency. “Promise me.”

Clarke, herself feeling the desperation etched on her mother’s face, swallowed hard. Something serious was happening, and she didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t want her mother upset. And so she nodded. “I promise.”

It was the first of many she’d make to keep herself and her family safe.

 

****

 

_The Kingsroad_

 

Whatever Clarke Lannister—nay, she’s Clarke Griffin now; her father made her repeat her new name over and over again and made her promise to _never_ be Clarke _Lannister_ again—was expecting the North to be, it was _exactly_ this. The air was bitingly cold; despite several layers of clothing, Clarke still felt as if she could use maybe a dozen blankets just so she’d stop trembling. She didn’t know how Arya could stand to be riding outside, completely exposed to the elements, though she supposed Starks _did_ have winter in their hearts.

Clarke, however, was used to the westerlands’ weather, and she could barely manage to look out the carriage’s window to scan her surroundings; when she finally did, she found that everything was covered with snow as far as she could see.

A cold barren wasteland was Clarke’s first impression of it all, but then she saw _Winterfell_ , and her previous expectations abruptly faded, carried away by the almost-musical whistle of the winds.

The Stark stronghold loomed dark and large against a backdrop of an inky night. Candlelight shone from dozens of windows in its many turrets. Above its iron gate were large direwolf banners, proud and snarling, and on the highest tower waved the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen.

She was helpless to stare in awe. It had not the splendor and the opulence of Casterly Rock, with its gilded ornaments and famed treasures (nor did the winter towns have Lannisport’s prosperity), but Winterfell . . . it was majestic in its own dark, somber way. Winterfell was built not _with_ art but _like_ art itself—it made Clarke _feel_.  

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” a voice asked her, and she turned to Uncle Tyrion, who was looking at her with a small pleased smirk. He was not as thickly clothed as she was, yet he didn’t seem bothered by the cold. Perhaps his time spent in the North during the Wight War had built up his tolerance to it. “Winterfell’s architecture confounded southron maesters for years, for it always seemed to change with every generation that passed.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, every King of Winter that held it seemed to add a part of his own to the castle. Winterfell as it stands now is really like the Starks’ own puzzle built in pieces over the years, making a grander whole.”

“So it could grow larger?”

Tyrion smiled, his eyes sparkling with the light of the flickering lamp. “Yes, yes, it could.” He sounded downright eager, and it was as if he was thinking of all the possible additions that could be made in the sprawling estate right then.

Clarke again stared at Winterfell, and her hands were itching for some charcoals and papers so that she could sketch what _she_ would make of the wolves’ home, given the chance. “It’s like . . . a living thing, then,” she murmured. “Growing and expanding on the earth that holds it.”

“That’s—well, yes. That _is_ quite an apt way of putting it.” He chuckled, realizing something. “Winterfell is even warm within its walls, as if blood was pumping in its foundation.”

“How can anything _that_ large be kept warm?” Clarke sounded doubtful. “Even if every room was to have a hearth and the hearths were to be kept burning at all times, they won’t be able to warm up the entire place.”

“Winterfell was built upon hot springs,” Tyrion explained, “and their heat keeps the worst of the winter chill out of its walls. According to various accounts, those springs were heated by the very furnace that made the Fourteen Flames of Valyria and the mountains of Dragonstone.”

Clarke hummed. “Maybe that’s why the dragons and the wolves were drawn to each other, then,” she murmured. “Their homes were born of the same fire.” Lost in thought as she was, she did not catch the way her uncle’s eyes widened with surprise, before his lips quirked up with genuine amusement.

 

****

 

This child sure would keep the wolves and dragons on their toes.

 

Tyrion had often been hesitant to spend any significant amount of time alone with young human beings. He’d never been one for children; he found them way too much trouble than he’s willing to deal with. And, honestly, almost every child he’d had the dubious pleasure of interacting with had been absolute hell spawns, especially if they were of Lannister blood; a prime example would be his _precious_ little nephew Joffrey. There were exceptions, sure—Myrcella had been a sweet child and Tommen, bless the boy, had only ever wanted to play with his cats in peace—but mostly, he’d really rather avoid the little cretins altogether.

Clarke, however, was of an entirely different sort.

Her father, Jakob, was one of the noblest men in their family, and her mother, Abigail, was a close kin of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. It was a strange match: a man from the family that ended the dragons’ reign and a woman from a family sworn to the dragons for hundreds of years. And yet their marriage worked, and from what Tyrion gathered, their bond was stronger than ever, founded on nothing but love. And, well, they managed to sire a truly special child—when he first saw the girl, anxiously clinging to her father’s leg, Tyrion knew without a doubt that she’d be her family’s pride.

Like her father, Clarke did not have the emerald eyes so often found in the Lannister bloodline—instead she had sapphire ones, as brilliant as the summer sky (and in them glinted vestiges of the sharp wit and keen intellect that she undoubtedly possessed). Her hair, though, was purely of the lions—rich and golden, like sparkling threads woven from the sun itself.

Her thoughts were quite well formed for someone so young, and Tyrion knew her parents did not lack in supervising her education—Jakob excelled in the sciences and Abigail was knowledgeable with medicine and healing, and they had clearly passed on their erudition to their child. And she’s courteous for the most part, though perhaps a little too frank—just the way he preferred the people he conversed with to be.

In all, well, Tyrion—to his astonishment—realized that he actually _liked_ the child.

There’s only _one_ other child about whom he could honestly say the same thing . . . and that one happened to be his queen’s own successor.

He’s pretty sure the Dragon’s Heir would find this little blond girl as much of a wonder as he did.

Young Alexandria did have good taste, after all.

 

****

 

_Winterfell, Seat of the Wardens of the North_

 

“Do we have enough mutton soup for the armies?” Sansa asked Wylla, an old kitchen maid who had served the Starks for years.

“We do, m’lady,” Wylla replied. “Supplies ransacked from the Dreadfort had arrived this morning, and there’s enough for the entire battalion and then some.”

Sansa blew a ragged breath. “All right, then, I just . . . The healers’ tents, have they been put up? Do we need more bandages and ale? I think I should have sent for a bit more of those herbs they saw beyond the Wall that helped with body heat, and—”

“M’lady,” Wylla interrupted Sansa’s nervous outburst, “everything’s going well. Worry not yer pretty head, aye? Winterfell’s been right through a lot, but we’re gonna be fine now. We’ve got ye children of Lord Ned and Lady Cat again here—four trueborn Stark children, and we have the Dragon Queen besides! The gods do listen to us people, don’t they?”

The Red Wolf breathed deeply, grounding herself. She had to be constantly moving, moving, moving—that’s how she got through the nightmarish years she’d been forced to live. When she’s idle, destructive thoughts plagued her mind, and even in sleep, tranquility eluded her. Everything had been blown to the Seven Hells before they managed to retake their home, and there was a measure of peace afterwards, but then the gods saw fit to make them suffer again—armies of the undead rose and threatened to destroy every living thing on sight.

Arya and their brother—no, cousin Jon had been in the frontlines. Sansa was no warrior, but she did her best to help; she rallied the wives of soldiers and the maesters and anyone else with capabilities to aid in the war— they worked tirelessly in healing the sick, replenishing supplies, restocking the armories, delivering messages. She led those left behind so that they could make sure that those who went to fight had a home to go back to and had something to _live_ for. In the middle of her responsibilities to their people, she took care of Brandon and Rickon and Meera as well, for it was to her that their other siblings had entrusted their safety.

And now, _that_ war ended, and peace seemed to be a plausible goal rather than an abstract ideal. Sansa hoped that this time, it would last, though still she found herself looking over her shoulders for the next threat and searching for danger where there was none. Unused to doing nothing, she’d thrown herself into the affairs of her House, and she supposed she needed to work on her calm, since battles were not an everyday matter of course anymore.

“Yes, I suppose they do,” she said once she’d reined in her racing thoughts. She then offered the old woman a sheepish smile. “I apologize if I was being too difficult.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Wylla said, with a wave, “yer proper one, m’lady, just like yer lady mother, gods bless her soul. She’d be so proud of you all, same as Lord Ned, no doubt.” She sounded suspiciously tearful, and Sansa knew the old woman had been through a lot herself—she’d been forced to serve the Boltons whilst the bastards occupied these revered halls, had been forced to bow before the lords who spat on their traditions and their old ways.

“Thank you, Wylla,” Sansa said, voice steady, but she could feel her defenses crumble.

“Of course, m’lady.” Wylla then bobbed a curtsy, but before scurrying away to go on with her chores, she said, “I’d be sure to keep extra slices of the steak for young Arya—there might be plenty of food for the rest but that one’s always had an appetite.”

“You do that, Wylla.” She chuckled wryly. “She’d appreciate it.”

 

****

 

“Missandei,” Queen Daenerys addressed her Naathi handmaiden, in that voice that always seemed to hold command with every syllable and yet still managed to sound warm and inviting, “according to Bran, the Stark army would be arriving in a few hours. Is everything ready?”

The Summer Islander tilted her head and replied, “Lady Sansa had everyone working on the feast, Your Grace. I’m sure she had it all handled. There are also tents for the maesters to tend to those wounded in the battle, and preparations for the burning of the dead had already been made.”

“And for the child?”

“A chamber has been prepared for the girl in the east wing, and I have sent word to King’s Landing to prepare a room for her in the Hand’s Tower.”

The queen nodded, pleased with the answers, and she caught Alexandria’s curious gaze. “Do you plan on keeping that?” her mother asked, an eyebrow raised, but Alexandria could see that she was amused.

 _That_ pertained to the blue winter rose held between Alexandria’s slender fingers while she sat before the room’s hearth. She had gone to Winterfell’s glass garden earlier to stare at the legendary flowers that heralded her family’s ruin, and she ended up taking one for herself, beguiled with the fact that something so beautiful could grow in such a cold, harsh terrain. Arya once told her, when they were in Meereen, that blue winter roses were the only flowers native to the North, and Alexandria had always wanted to see them ever since.

Alexandria shrugged. “It’s beautiful,” was all she said.

“Yes, but every rose has its thorns.”

“Arya taught me how to nick them off without damaging the stem.” She idly twirled the flower, though her green eyes never left Daenerys’s Valyrian-lilac ones. “She’ll be here soon?”

“Bran said so,” her mother replied. “And I’ve long since learned that it’s best to heed the wolves.”

“So it’s finished then? The war that consumed her inside?” she asked. For all the years she’d known Arya, she’d always had a storm within—a swirling maelstrom of hate and revenge. It’s what had fueled the Northerner to be the best of what she was—a killer, an assassin. Arya was perhaps the best weapon in the Queen’s arsenal that was not _entirely_ a beast—for make no mistake, she was as wild and ferocious as the direwolf that was her family’s sigil—and she was cold and fierce _yet_ just and honourable to a fault.

Simply put, Arya was who Alexandria aspired to be.

Her mother’s lips quirked up in a corner, eyes dancing with understanding. “Yes, that seemed to be the case.”

Alexandria nodded the same way her mother did. “Good,” she declared, tone seemingly bored, but her green eyes told a different story. “Maybe then she could stop being an uptight arse.”

Missandei giggled, and though her mother schooled her expression into a vaguely reproving one, a smile was threatening to break free from her royal mask.

“I won’t be so sure about that,” Daenerys said. “I think Arya finds infuriating you a particularly entertaining hobby.”

Alexandria huffed. “Mother, I thought you were supposed to back your _own daughter_ up.”

“A good queen backs her family up,” Daenerys agreed. “A great queen, on the other hand, backs her whole realm up.”

“Ah, so is that what we’re calling Arya now—‘the whole realm’?”

“As your queen, Alexandria, and as your mother,” Daenerys managed to sound dignified, though a blush was quickly spreading across her pale skin, “I suggest you forget that train of thought right now.”

“And as your heir-apparent, Queen Daenerys, and as your devoted child,” Alexandria shot back, grinning like the impertinent child that she was, “I suggest you follow what your heart demands.”

Daenerys rolled her eyes, but there’s a different light glowing in their lilac depths now. She’s radiant this way, when she stepped away from her titles for a second and just let herself _be_. It seldom happened, but when it did, Alexandria savored every moment; she knew that when her mother officially ascended as the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, these instances would be even rarer and farther in between.

Though King’s Landing had been brought under the Dragon Queen’s rule, Daenerys had not been yet crowned; there was no time for the ceremony with the war against the Others yapping insistently at their heels. They immediately headed to the North after calming down the capital’s civil unrest. A group of trusted individuals, led by Lord Varys, was left in the Red Keep to oversee its business whilst the Queen went to war.

Now, with the battles won and the war over, her mother would be facing a different sort of combat—one that would demand to keep _Daenerys_ away so that the _Queen_ could finally take her rightful place on the Iron Throne.

The time for that was drawing closer, Alexandria knew, but for now, she’d indulge herself into thinking that she could still have her mother with her, before she relinquished her to the realm.

 

****

 

Alexandria was perched on the roof of Winterfell’s highest parapet when she saw the marching army. Arya was riding in front, Nymeria trotting beside her, excited to be back on Northern soil. There was a carriage with the Targaryen sigil following a few feet back, guarded on the sides by several Unsullied, led by Black Rat. Behind them were the rest of the Stark men tasked with ending the war with the Lannisters of the Rock.

She watched the carriage intently, almost as if she’d see inside it if she stared hard enough. She heard her mother talk about the Lannister child Tyrion would be bringing with him. (Though, well, there would be no House Lannister anymore. _Griffin_ , she recalled Bran saying, would be an appropriate name for the new Great House. Headed by one of Tyrion’s cousins, House Griffin was then appointed as the royal justice in the Westerlands.) And as she knew the Hand of the Queen was not fond of riding horses especially for long journeys, it stood to reason that he was the carriage’s occupant, along with whomever it was he deemed worthy to be part of her mother’s court.

She trusted Tyrion’s judgment, for the most part, and Bran’s belief that the child was special was enough for Alexandria to dismiss it as another of those things she’s going to have to live with as part of her duty to their people.

Alexandria straightened up, and with one last scrutinizing gaze at the advancing legion, she leapt.

 

****

 

Rhaegal had learned to anticipate his master’s maneuvers. Connected as they were by blood, they also had a bond between their minds, and he knew when the Young Blood was feeling a bit adventurous, when she’s being stubborn, and when she’s testing his skills.

This time, he knew she was doing all three.

As soon as the Young Blood stood up from her watching place on one of the Wolf Castle’s roofs, Rhaegal knew she would be doing something their Mother would not approve of, no matter how they both believed it safe. But the Young Blood was willful, and so was he, so it’s not really a big issue; or, well, it might be, but they did not care to look at it that way.

So Rhaegal had immediately prepared to fly, and when the Young Blood fearlessly jumped, he was there to catch her.

“ _Kirimvose_ , Rhaegal,” the Young Blood thanked her in their ancestors’ tongue, and he bellowed with approval.  “ _You saved my life._ ”

Rhaegal snorted. _The Young Blood trusts me and I trust the Young Blood. Your life is my life. We are fire and blood._

The Young Blood chuckled. “ _I suppose, when you put it that way, it sounds a bit more profound. I like it._ ”

Rhaegal grumbled, and the Young Blood took it for the complaint that it was.

“Well, all right, then, my dear sappy brother.” She tapped him thrice. “We’re going to fly away from your feelings and mine.”

And so they soared across the dark Northern sky, and the Young Blood’s heart beat in time with his.

 

****

 

Far below, a young blonde girl who had just alighted from a Targaryen coach craned her neck to see the roaring child of the Mother of Dragons, and she stared marveling at the great winged beast—fire made flesh—that effortlessly glided among the stars.

And sky-blue eyes filled with quiet admiration when they beheld, for the first time, the famous Dragon’s Heir.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, fam. I’m gonna pretend y’all missed me. LOL.  
> And, uh, to those who have sent me messages, sorry for the long wait! And thank you for your words. You guys helped me get my shit together enough to finally start writing again . . . because tbh I was in pretty bad head space. Also I was swamped with the demands of my job—cuz, y’know, I do have to pay for stuff like groceries and so working was kinda prioritized.  
> Anyway. I can’t promise a consistent update schedule but I can try to make sure it won’t take _this_ long again.
> 
> And for the purpose of this story, let’s say that Rickon Stark zigzagged and lived, okay?
> 
> Translation:
> 
>   * _Kirimvose_ (High Valyrian) “Thank you”
> 



	5. II. The Winter Rose

 

_“It’s a blue winter rose,” Lexa told Clarke, whose eyes were so blue and so sad. She took one of Clarke’s hands, pressed the thornless stem into her palm, and gently curled the younger girl’s fingers around it. “It’s yours now.”_

_“It’s a pretty flower,” Clarke lilted, taking the rose closer to breathe in its scent_ _, lovely and cold._

 _“It’s not just any flower, though,” Lexa said, fingers still wrapped around Clarke’s, bringing warmth to cooled skin. “It’s the only one native to the North, and it grows here all year round. Anywhere else, it won’t bloom unless it’s winter.” Lexa waited until Clarke looked up and met her gaze before continuing, “It’s also the same flower Uncle Rhaegar gave Lyanna Stark in the king’s tourney_ _, the same flower_ _that was the harbinger of the Targaryen family’s greatest fall.”_

 

 

“Why were you up in Maidenpool?” Arya asks without preamble, shaking Lexa out of her reverie. They have been given the Queen’s permission to leave the Great Hall—though a promise to have a _long_ talk later during supper was extracted—and they are now making their way through the Red Keep. It is not a simple task, for every so often they are stopped by members of the Targaryen household—servants, pages, and the like—who are extremely _eager_ to welcome the Dragon’s Heir back.

“How’d you know I was there?” Lexa returns with a question of her own.

Arya shakes her head, annoyed at the deflection but choosing to not comment on it. “Your mother was worried,” she answered plainly.

“Oh.” Lexa’s eyebrows furrow. “I suppose I ran a little late.”

“Enough to warrant Missandei’s worry.”

“She always worries.”

“True.” Arya’s eyes flash, and then Lexa’s being unceremoniously pulled into a small room hidden by heavy tapestries.

“Wh—”

“Ssshh,” Arya hisses. “You’re the one being accosted by your adoring people with every step you take, and I’m getting tired of it.”

Lexa frowns, but she finds that she can’t contest that. So far, they have been waylaid by no less than a dozen goodmen and goodwomen who had watched Lexa grow up, and they have been fussing over her braids and her skin and asking whether she’d been eating well whilst she was in another continent. The attention is not unwanted and is even appreciated, and Lexa did miss being amongst these people, but, “What’s that have to do with manhandling me in this dusty room?”

Looking around, she surmises it is a closet, of some sort, with various cloths and leathers hanging on hooks and lines, and there are even a few armors lying about. Lexa has never set foot in here before, that much she is sure of, and that surprises her—she supposes she does have much more to learn about her family’s sovereign seat.

“Don’t be a whiny child. I’d hardly call that manhandling,” Arya grumbles, ignoring Lexa’s indignant “I’m _not_ a child.” Then grey eyes are judging her, as if she was an utter fool for even needing to voice out her previous question. “There were six serving ladies who were heading our way, Your Grace, and unless you want to be prodded and coddled like a wee babe _again_ , then I recommend you stay put and stay quiet.” With that she moves over, elbowing Lexa away from the door and leaning close to peek through the crack.

Lexa rolls her eyes. “I forgot how acerbic you could be. Thank you for the reminder.”

Arya elects to ignore her. “Hmm, perhaps they weren’t that useless, after all,” she says distractedly, after several seconds ticked by.

“What now?”

Arya sighs. “You _were_ aware of the idiots following us, were you not? Or did your time across the sea rob you of your skills in stealth and detection as much as it robbed you of your common sense?”

“Of course I was.” Lexa scowls and cuts off before Arya can say something insulting again. “ _Aware_ of them, I mean, you arse.”

“Good to know.”

“Who are they, anyway? I’ve been meaning to ask. They seemed—”

“—like untrained buffoons.”

“—too young to be soldiers.” Lexa raises her eyebrows at Arya’s irritated glower, curious at the tinge of mild chagrin in the Northerner’s features, and suddenly she understands. “Don’t tell me—”

“Yes.”

“No way.” Lexa sounds gleeful, now. She beams at Arya’s sullen countenance. “Oh gods, really? How did this happen?”

There are several moments of stubborn silence. Finally, Arya, looking and sounding terribly aggrieved, says, “The Queen insisted.”

Lexa quietly chuckles then, still mindful of their hiding place. “And you can never deny her anything, can you?” she ribs Arya. She nudges the knight from her position and takes a look outside herself. “So, what, Mother asked you to get your own squires?” She sees two youths—a girl and a boy—obliging the questions those serving ladies have, probably about where the Dragon’s Heir disappeared to, and they seem to be successfully misleading them too.

The Wolf Knight grimaces. “ _Apprentices_ , I believe was the word she used, since I am not an ordinary knight by any means, and my skill set is far more . . . peculiar.”

The two apprentices have managed to send the ladies on the opposite direction to which Lexa and Arya would be headed, and they then proceed to stand several feet from the door, on guard. To the goodpeople they might seem nonchalant, but Lexa can see that they are in equal parts anxious and overwhelmed, eyes repeatedly darting to the door. “Well, they still have a long way to go,” she observes.

“Tell me about it.”

“Children of nobles, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Arya says, “but both are bastards, acknowledged but not legitimized.”

“I see.” Lexa turns to Arya, hearing what is unsaid: the two have been chosen by nothing but the virtue of their integrity—obviously something Arya herself weighed for, because there’s no way she would have allowed someone else to choose her own novices for her. She’s much too meticulous for that. “Which houses sired them?”

“Octavia is Lady Aurora Blake’s child from a smith she took to her bed when Lord Blake perished, having fought in the War of the Five Kings, and Nathan is a lord of Florent’s bastard son from a miller’s daughter.”

Lexa squints, thinking back to the lessons she had regarding noble houses. “Blakes are from the Stormlands, and House Florent is of the Reach. So a Storm and a Flowers, yes?” She is just assuming that the two were born in their noble families’ lands, thereby granting them the respective bastard names.

It turns out that the assumption is correct, for Arya confirms, “Yes, Your Grace.”

“And yet a Wolf is training them.” Lexa’s eyes are bright with teasing. “Do you suppose I should call them the Wolf’s Cubs, then?”

The look Arya sends her is as cold as the land from which she hails, and if Lexa were a lesser being, she would have certainly quavered on her feet. “Never say that again, Your Grace.” It is meant as a warning, but there is also a faint trace of reluctant exasperation in Arya’s tone.

Lexa merely grins.

 

****

 

“You’re nervous,” Arya offhandedly remarks.

Lexa looks at her sharply; though the Northerner isn’t laughing outright, she might as well be, with the way her eyes are crinkling in the corners with suppressed mirth. “I am _not_ ,” she says.

Arya’s leaning against the wall, her left hand idly resting on the hilt of her sword; they have decided to wait a few more minutes before continuing on their way, just to be sure. “You’ve been tense since you left the throne room,” she points out. “And you’ve been tugging at that ridiculous sash of yours every so often. I’ve watched you grow into the person you turned out to be. And though you ended up a decent fighter—for the most part—you still have nervous tics, and that’s one of them.” Arya smirks. “Of course, there’s also the fact that I could almost hear your teeth grinding themselves to powder with how hard you’re clenching your stupid jaw.”

Green eyes snap at grey ones tetchily, but Lexa is really in no place to argue Arya’s words. She exhales roughly, fingers releasing said sash—she wasn’t even aware she’s been doing it—and she _can_ feel an ache spreading on her cheeks, her jaw almost locking itself in place with the exertion.

For all the years she spent perfecting her mask of indifference, she can never truly hide from the one who taught it to her in the first place. Good to know some things haven’t changed.

Arya looks at her expectantly, an eyebrow raised, lips curving in a smug line.

“Is she well?” Lexa asks eventually. What use is there pretending, anyway? They’re alone, for now, and she _can_ afford to show concern—Arya’s one of the few people to whom she’d entrust her life.

“You know we will never hurt her, Your Grace.” Arya says, soberly, knowing from whence Lexa’s tension is coming. “Lady Clarke’s been well taken care of, and we made certain she’s wanting for nothing.”

“Except her home,” Lexa murmurs, sounding pensive but resigned.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace. It’s not my place to meddle with affairs of the state. And whether we like it or not, Lady Clarke _is_ an affair of the state, and her position in the general order of Westerosi politics is unique.” Arya shrugs then straightens her posture so that she’s face to face with the Dragon’s Heir. “And if it puts your mind at ease, she has proven herself a remarkable member of the Queen’s court as well.”

“Yes, Missandei wrote to me about that.” Lexa hums thoughtfully, and a smile appears on her face, then, small but nonetheless real. “She handles the particularly stupid ones, doesn’t she?”

“Well, yes—wait, did Missandei say that, exactly?” Arya grins—the wolfish one Lexa knows was what first endeared the Stark scion to the Queen, all those years ago. All her previous good humor has now reappeared. “If so, I’m _proud_.”

“One needs to spend only a few months with you to become uncouth, Arya, and Missandei’s been around a lot _longer_ than that. She’s bound to pick up some of your . . .  more undisciplined traits, and I’m surprised it wasn’t even sooner.”

“Oh please,” Arya scoffs, “your Dothraki screamers are a lot wilder than even _Nymeria_ , and you don’t see Missandei running around with bells in her hair.”

“ _They_ don’t do words a lot,” Lexa says, “and Missandei does. And _you_ sure love to talk when it incenses other people, so there’s that.”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you went back here just to hurt my feelings. I can’t believe you’re comparing me to the bloody horselords.”

“Watch your tongue, Wolf—I am a horselord,” Lexa retorts, entirely deadpan. “Besides, I would never waste a whole lot of time just to hurt your so-called feelings. I have far much better things to do.”

“Right,” Arya agrees, looking at her pointedly, “talk to one golden-haired lass, for instance.” At the rigidity of Lexa’s stance Arya has the audacity to bark a laugh, and she just beams at the positively murderous glare the Dragon’s Heir throws her way. “You might dawdle as much as you want, Your Grace, but no matter how much longer you put it off, _that_ conversation won’t be going away. I suggest you get it over with sooner rather than later, before you manage to swallow your own damn tongue with all your words unspoken.”

And then the Wolf Knight opens the door and tilts her head, silently telling her to go on and head out, and Lexa sighs but obeys.

 

(For all her mocking and seeming disrespect, when it comes down to it, Lexa really _does_ listen to the Wolf Knight.)

 

****

 

When they get through the door, Arya raises a hand to beckon her two apprentices, who hastily comply.

“Your Grace, these are the new swords sworn to the Dragon’s service, Octavia Storm and Nathan Flowers.”

They both look quite startled, not expecting to be formally introduced to the Dragon’s Heir, and if Lexa weren’t currently on her way to what could quite possibly be the most nerve-racking meeting of her life herself, she would have found their expressions hilarious. As it is, Lexa can only offer them a nod and a small smile as they bow and say, “Hail, the Young Dragon.”

“As you were,” Lexa bids them quickly, not having much patience for the formality.

The two novice warriors stand erect, and Lexa allows herself the opportunity to study them and, if possible, make as accurate a judgment of their characters as possible.

Octavia Storm has intense blue eyes, and her long dark hair is put in neat plaits so that it doesn’t get in her way. She is lovely the same way blades are lovely—beautifully chiseled but lethally dangerous and _can_ bring forth destruction given the chance. She’s not tall, but even then, contained within her is the innate ferocity of the Stormlands, and one needs to be either blind or incredibly dense to _not_ see that the girl is the personification of her bastard name, vicious and formidable. She’s a born _fighter_ , and she intends to show that she has what it takes to be a _victor_.

Nathan Flowers, with his close-cropped dark hair and determined dark eyes, is striking and ruggedly handsome, and his strong will shines through his careful gaze. Well-built and standing tall, he cuts an imposing figure, all muscle and brawn that he seems to know how to use, at least to some degree, given the cuts and bruises on his knuckles. He clearly has not the frailties of _his_ bastard name but the tenacity and resilience of the farmers of the Reach.

Lexa would like to spar with them, to see if they could live up to her appraisal. They seem to be an interesting match—Octavia would have to rely on her speed and agility to make up for her size, and Nathan would have to apply his brute force strategically so that he won’t be easily worn down—each having something that the other does not, creating a fascinating balance.

They seem to be aware of what Lexa is doing, gauging them and seeing if they are worthy of Arya Stark’s tutelage, and she is pleased to note that they are not backing down. If anything, they stand straighter, almost audaciously, daring her to find them lacking.

Lexa is _really_ tempted to take them up on the implicit challenge.

But that would have to wait. She has to be satisfied with the knowledge that Arya wouldn’t have chosen them without good reason—the Wolf Knight is as great at judging people as she is at killing them, after all.

For now, well, Lexa has to face a challenge of her own. “Let’s go, shall we?” she says, starting to walk.

They bow again, before falling in and following her and Arya at a discreet distance.

 

****

 

“Ready to see your bride, Your Grace?” Arya asks her when they see the door to Clarke’s solar.

Lexa’s blood quickens at the word, remembering fervent oaths and warm promises exchanged beneath the Northern moon. “That was years ago, Wolf Knight, shut up.” Then she adds, a bit immaturely and a lot defensively, “She’s my _friend_.”

“I have no doubt that she is, Your Grace,” Arya says, her tone patronizing, and Lexa would have really tried to knock her out at that moment if she thought she could have pulled it off.

She settles for a glower. “She _is_ ,” she insists.

“I am not refuting that. I’m just aware that you wish to do things to her that you won’t think of doing to your other supposed friends.” Noticing how Lexa’s face is reddening, her mouth closing and opening like a Tully fish, sputtering with half-formed words, Arya _laughs_. “Gods, you blush just as easily. One would think years surrounded by Essossi beauties would have made you worldlier, even if just a tad.”

“I said _shut up_.”

“I’m just saying, didn’t you even _at least_ try to be with those Lysene maidens? Exquisite ones, those women. Or maybe you prefer the tanned daughters of Volantis. And Pent—”

“Would you like to tell the Queen about the _adventures_ you had in Essos before swearing yourself to her, then,” Lexa drawls, taking pleasure in the way Arya turns paler than winter snow, “or would you like me to do the honour?”

Arya visibly gulps, all smugness gone. “. . . Point taken, Your Grace.”

 

****

 

Lexa’s spirit gets stuck somewhere in her throat as Nathan announces her to the closed door. “Her Grace Alexandria, Princess of Dragonstone, my lady.”

And she barely has the time to calm herself down and try to summon the _dragon_ she knows herself to be when the door opens, and then she is looking into her sky.

 

****

 

Lexa is pretty sure asking to be alone with Clarke right now is simultaneously the best and the worst decision she has done _as of yet_.

On one hand, no one can bear witness to her making an absolute fool of herself. _“You’ve grown”? Really?_ Lexa mentally berates herself. _Who in the Seven Hells says that?_ If Arya were here, Lexa has no doubt she would have been mercilessly teased for the rest of her life. (Or at least until Lexa’s the queen, in which case Arya would stop just because Lexa’s queenship would mean Daenerys’s demise, and that would mean that Arya would also be gone, because there is simply no way Arya would let herself live in a world without her queen . . . and it’s not like the Wolf would let anything happen to the Queen under her watch, so.)

On the other hand, _she is alone with Clarke_. For the first time in four years, she is looking at Clarke in the flesh, and Lexa doesn’t know what to do with herself at all. Does she hug her? Is that acceptable? They are both adults now, mostly, with Lexa at nine-and-ten and Clarke at six-and-ten, and are thus old enough to know _and_ care about decorum.

But Clarke always did manage to let loose all of Lexa’s inhibitions, and the Dragon’s Heir does not mind that in the least.

 

****

 

“Here,” Lexa says, presenting her with an exquisite blue flower only seen in one kingdom in the whole of Westeros, unless it is winter.

“A blue winter rose.” Clarke smiles, delightedly reaching out to take the offering, though she does look a little puzzled. “It’s in the middle of summer.”

Lexa quirks her lips in a half smile. “I went to Winterfell first before heading back here.”

“You . . .” Even more confused now, Clarke asks, “You did that just to pick a flower?”

“It’s not just any flower, Clarke.” Lexa cups her cheek, and Clarke instinctively leans into her warm touch, making Lexa’s insides tangle into hopeless knots. By the Seven, how did Lexa survive for four years without her? “It’s the same flower Uncle Rhaegar gave Lyanna Stark, the same flower—”

“—that was the harbinger of the Targaryen family’s greatest fall,” Clarke finished with her. “I remember.”

“And I remember how much you like them.” Clarke’s skin is so soft beneath Lexa’s fingers. “I did not go to Winterfell _just_ to pick a flower, Clarke. I did it for _you_.”

“Oh.” Clarke’s eyes widen, as she is seemingly disbelieving that anyone would go out of their way to do nice things for her. “I . . . Lexa, thank you.”

“It isn’t a favour,” Lexa says. “I don’t need nor want your thanks.”

“Still, you shall have it,” Clarke persists, resolute, rolling her eyes at Lexa’s scoff.

“Is that any way to behave before your liege, my lady?” Lexa grins, and she drops her hand to tug Clarke closer, and her heart skips a beat or two when Clarke tangles their free hands together. Lexa closes her eyes as she leans down, resting her forehead against Clarke’s. “I really did miss you, you know.”

“I know. You might have told me, once or twice.” She feels as Clarke sighs rather than hear it, and the sound is more of contentment than anything else. “Welcome home, Lexa.”

Lexa can hear her heart pounding madly in her chest, in time to her people’s chant outside and the sound of Rhaegal’s roars as he is reunited with their siblings. “This is where I belong,” she says, and there is not a single part of her that doesn’t believe it, not when she feels Clarke against her and hears her breaths and sees her smile seared into her mind.

 

Yes. The Dragon’s Heir is home, and with the Golden Griffin in her arms, there’s really nowhere else she’d rather be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Octavia as a Storm and Nathan as a Flowers just make sense to me, all right? #NoHate :))  
> (can I get a hell yes for the Wolf’s Cubs though look at them being trained by ARYA what’s not to like)
> 
> ALSO gods this chapter was a lot more trouble than I asked for.


	6. III. The Golden Griffin

 

Clarke hasn’t felt this way for a long time.

_Four years, to be exact._

For four years she hasn’t felt this safe, this content, this _happy_.

That word doesn’t even begin to cover what Clarke’s feeling, in all honesty, for it dominates her and fills her and makes her want to shout in absolute exultation.

Every worry that has plagued her has been banished into oblivion, and now?

Now she just wants to allow herself to truly understand what it means that Lexa is here.

With her.

In her arms.

Warm, alive, _present_.

 

And by the gods, Clarke also allows herself to plead that this time, by her side Lexa will stay.

 

****

_Clarke was led to a room in Winterfell’s east wing after being presented to the Dragon Queen, who was not at all the way Clarke had anticipated her to be. Queen Daenerys Targaryen—the most powerful person in the whole world—was smaller than she thought, for one, standing shorter than the Wolf Knight. And for another, she seemed to be more of a candle’s gentle light than the raging inferno that had consumed those who stood in her way, a blaze of wrath and queenly retribution._

_It appeared that most of the tales young Clarke had been told were false, then._

_And she’d be lying if she said she’s not even a little relieved. She still had some uneasiness about living with dragons away from her home, but at least they were not complete monsters. And she had Uncle Tyrion with her, who was every bit as clever as her father said._

_It was with these thoughts that she let herself calm down enough to venture to her room’s spacious balcony, so that she could properly breathe in the Northern air and embrace the cold rather than resist it.  Clarke clutched her furs tighter, grateful for the additional coats the Queen’s handmaiden—Missandei, she heard her called—had given her, providing more protection against the harsh winter winds. New gloves also now covered her hands, as the previous ones were pathetically thin and could not hope to keep her fingers from falling off blue in this temperature; despite the warmth that indeed permeated Winterfell’s granite walls, just like Uncle Tyrion told her, it was still incredibly cold for a southron child._

_A vast whiteness was the sight that greeted her as she stepped into the night, and she could almost taste winter with every breath she took. It was serene, and instead of the usual dread Clarke had always associated with these olden lands, at that moment she felt safe._

_Safer than she thought she could ever be, here in the wolves’ keep._

_Perhaps it was the presence of the North’s famed old gods, or perhaps it was simply from the exhaustion the previous weeks had wrought her, but with every second that passed, Clarke felt tranquility seep into her skin, settling deep in her bones. She closed her eyes, then, and took all of it in._

_The wails of the winds that had so terrified her earlier receded to a gentle hum, and it was almost a song—made of feet pattering on snow-covered ground, of howling direwolves and growling dragons, of ancient whispers from the godswood—and Clarke could believe that Winterfell was indeed home to the divine._

_She knew not how long she stayed standing there, listening to winter’s tender lullaby, but when she opened her eyes again, there was a thin layer of frost on her outermost coat, and she could hear the soft crunch of ice when she moved her fingers._

_Candlelight burned in more windows when she looked at the Great Keep across, and more torches were lit in the courtyard. She knew she would be summoned for supper any minute now, and she should make haste to change her dresses._

_When she turned, however, shock gripped her, and it was only the cold that had prevented her from screaming._

_For there, merely several steps away, stood the Dragon’s Heir._

 

****

 

“Tyrion was the one who told that little servant girl to bid Lady Clarke stay in her solar, wasn’t he?” Arya asks as she stares at the iron spikes lining the dry moat of Maegor’s Holdfast.

“Yes, he was,” Octavia says. “That was what the serving ladies we stalled earlier wanted to tell the Dragon’s Heir. Clarke was supposed to dine with Her Grace, as per usual—and the princess, in extension, I suppose—but the Hand thought it would be prudent for her to stay in and wait, at least until Her Grace herself got the chance to talk to her daughter first.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Arya concurs. She adds with a roguish smirk, turning at them, “The mighty Dragon’s Heir would have possibly lost her damn mind upon seeing the Golden Griffin so soon after arriving.”

The two bastard apprentices exchange amused glances, well aware of the teasingly antagonistic relationship between the Wolf and the Dragon’s Heir, and it is no secret to the Queen’s court that their princess holds deep affection for the Hand’s dear niece.

Nathan chuckles. “Well, were she to hear about the Dornish lord, she’d more than lose it, I bet.”

“Please.” Octavia sneers. “There’s no need to even consider _that_. Clarke’s mind is pretty much set on one person, even if she’s refusing to admit it.”

Arya tilts her head, intrigued. She knows Octavia is close to Clarke Griffin, as is Nathan. They have been part of the golden-haired noble’s inner circle since arriving at the Red Keep a couple of years ago. It’s also quite possibly why Arya chose these two as apprentices, at the start; Clarke’s ability to judge a person’s character is as sound as Arya’s herself, and perhaps even more so since the former’s was innate while the latter’s was a result of years of ghastly experiences and rigorous training. Therefore, those whom Clarke deems worthy of her friendship are right away placed leagues beyond others in terms of their moral fibre, and so far, they have all been given proper credit upon Arya’s closer inspection.

“Yes, but the Dragon’s Heir does not know that. And from what I hear”—Nathan throws Arya a pointed look—“dragons are extremely territorial creatures.”

Arya rolls her eyes and refuses to dignify him with an answer. Moral fibre aside, these two are stupidly ridiculous most of the time.

“That’s a surprisingly compelling argument,” Octavia allows, contemplative. “Might be worth seeing the outcome, actually. I’d like the pleasure of seeing the Dornish Duck’s arse kicked back into his sandcastle.”

“I’m pretty sure his crest was of a pigeon and ducks don’t live in sand.”

“I’m pretty sure his voice was like a dying duck’s and I don’t really care.”

The Wolf Knight huffs a laugh. “Why does it sound like you have a deep hatred for the Dornish boy?”

 “I don’t,” Octavia says. “I just . . . intensely dislike him.”

“Because that’s different.”

“It is,” she insists. “Hatred would imply that I care enough to exert so much energy to feel it, and I simply do _not_.”

“He’s a smarmy lad,” Nathan pipes in. “As slick as his hair, probably. Which is not a good thing.”

“If he’s so bad, why is Clarke even entertaining his advances?” Arya asks, though she has an idea—Clarke Griffin has always been a proper noblewoman; she flourished under the Dragon Queen’s protection and has exceeded expectations, thereby once more proving Bran right in his foresights.

“Propriety, most like,” Nathan answers, confirming it. “House Collins has gained sway in the Dornish court, and they wish to expand their foothold by marrying someone from a powerful family in another region of Westeros, even better if that someone had Dayne blood.”

“Clarke, evidently, is both,” Octavia says. “And she knows she can’t say no—at least not yet—no matter how much she wants to. She has a duty to her house, and she can’t ignore that.”

“I see. Marrying for politics, is it?” Arya sighs. This has been a recurring theme in court life, and frankly, it’s distressing. “But the heiress to Brightclaw obviously could do better. House Griffin is now one of the Great Houses, and I don’t think Lord Griffin would just marry off his only child to some lordling.”

“No, he won’t,” Nathan agrees.

“And, let’s be honest,” Octavia adds, “Lady Griffin is far less likely to let Clarke marry someone not even noble enough to be from a Great House.”

Arya thinks of the handful of times she has met Lady Abigail Griffin, and she’s inclined to agree with Octavia’s assessment. The Griffin matriarch is a force to be reckoned with, worthy kin to the Sword of the Morning. It is clear from whence Clarke got her brilliance.

She hides a pleased smile. A Targaryen dragon with Dothraki forthrightness, and a Griffin reborn from Lannister lions, infused with the brightness brought from the lords of Starfall . . .

Well, it is an interesting match, no doubt, and Arya sure would like to know just how it all falls into place.

 

****

 

The blue winter rose’s stem is smooth in Clarke’s palm, and the flower’s scent is of snow, of innocence, of sweet promises made before the old gods. “Do you remember the first time we met?” she asks, still in Lexa’s embrace, and still unwilling to let go.

“How could I forget?” Lexa answers, grinning at her, and oh, how Clarke adores that sight. “You looked like a wight, standing almost frozen in your balcony as you foolishly try to build your tolerance to cold.”

Clarke giggles. “That was not what I was doing.”

“Whatever you say.”

“You were impressive then.”

Lexa draws back, just enough to look at Clarke with mock-affront, narrowing her eyes. “Do you mean I am not impressive now?”

“Your words,” Clarke says. Her eyes are teasing.

“I see how it is, then. I leave for a bit, and this is how I am welcomed? I shouldn’t have come back.”

She is barely done speaking when Clarke’s grip on her hand tightens. “Four years is _not_ ‘a bit.’” She swallows, and she averts her gaze. “And do not even jest about that, Lexa, please.”

Lexa’s eyes soften, and she lifts their joined hands, pressing a kiss on Clarke’s knuckles. “I’m sorry,” she says, understanding ringing in her voice, her tone the one she has especially for Clarke.

Clarke shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t—I just don’t want to even think about you being gone any longer, and I—I can’t . . . You just . . .”

“Hey,” Lexa soothes her, her thumb drawing smooth circles on Clarke’s skin, “it’s all right. I’m here now, Clarke. I’m here.”

 

****

 

_Mayhap a century has passed, or mayhap it was only seconds. Whichever it was, it sure did feel like an eternity._

_Clarke’s gaze was affixed on the girl before her; she had the greenest eyes Clarke had ever seen, vivid despite the darkness that had enveloped them. Everything about her screamed royalty, and Clarke felt a strong urge to kneel, like how knights in the stories often did before their liege. There was something in this girl’s eyes that was both assuring and commanding, and Clarke couldn’t quite decide what to actually do._

_What was one supposed to, anyway, when suddenly in the presence of the entire realm’s most precious child?_

_She was at a loss, and at the same time, she did not want to seem like a boorish imbecile—her parents did raise her to be able to conduct herself appropriately when with royalty, in any case. However, Clarke also did not want to look away from those green eyes at all._

_So, ever the problem solver, she settled for a compromise._

_She lowered her head in a bow, still not breaking eye contact._

_The Dragon’s Heir nodded in return, a small sign of acceptance but a sign nonetheless, and Clarke took that to mean she could straighten back._

_She felt like she was being studied, and maybe she was—Nan Lora said that dragons had a way of seeing into people’s souls, judging them if they were adequate or not._

_And if so, then, Clarke would like to prove to herself and to this dragonlord that her soul_ was _adequate._

_And the Dragon’s Heir must have seen something in Clarke’s soul, for amusement flickered in her verdant gaze. It was she who spoke first. “You’re the one they call the Golden Griffin,” the Dragon’s Heir said, and her voice was softer and smoother than Clarke assumed._

_Really, with the rate her expectations had been met so far—which was to say, not at all—Clarke should have known better than to assume_ anything _._

_Hiding her surprise—being so directly addressed by a monarch, with no hint of pomp or artifice—Clarke steeled her resolve, and she replied without a tremor in her voice, “You’re the one they call the Young Dragon.”_

_The Dragon’s Heir still seemed amused—more than Clarke would have liked her to be, really—but mixed in her stare now was something like wonderment. Maybe Clarke was just seeing things, though. Children had a tendency to do that, she remembered Lord Kevan telling her parents. “Supper’s being served in a few minutes, so I suggest you get ready,” she told Clarke, still in her dulcet tone. She shrugged, and to Clarke, the movement seemed to be intended to hide her shyness. “Afterwards, I could be the one to accompany you, should you allow it. Would that be all right with you?”_

_Clarke stared. She was not at all expecting the offer. That the Targaryen child would be willing to talk to her, much less keep her company, had never even crossed Clarke’s mind. And yet here she was, Heir to the Iron Throne, asking Clarke—of all people—if it would be all right for her to take her to supper with the Dragon Queen. And though the Dragon’s Heir was looking at her as if Clarke were transparent glass, Clarke did not feel afraid of what she would find._

_The young Targaryen’s lips pulled into a small smile, as if Clarke’s eyes had given her a clarity she did not intend to unearth. “So? Do you have an answer for me, Clarke of the House Griffin?”_

_As if there was even any other possible answer to that._

****

 

(Years down the line, Clarke would remember that moment as the greatest turning point in her life.

 

For that was the moment when it first became apparent that she cannot and will not be able to deny the Young Dragon _anything_.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m such a disappointment to myself.  
> This chapter was not supposed to exist; I have a different thing to say here, but I haven’t figured out how to say it yet, so we got stuck here.
> 
> However, the next chap’s gonna be what this one’s supposed to be. 
> 
> [HINT: Next chapter is titled The Queen’s Banquet.]


	7. IV. The Queen’s Banquet

 

“Well? Will the Crown be able to bear the expenses?” asks the Hand of the Queen to the Master of Coin, across from whom he sits.

“With the economy continuing to stabilize and the reserves having been replenished, I am confident it will, my lord,” Ser Garlan Tyrell answers. The Master of Coin’s cabinet room is full to bursting with scrolls and books detailing the realm’s finances, and presently he is perusing the most recent records. “We could afford the proposed tourney and the feasts that come with it.”

“And what will the final figures for the prizes be?”

Ser Garlan then looks up, a subtly thrilled spark in his eyes. “Fifty thousand golden dragons to the tourney champion, thirty thousand to whoever comes second, and thirty thousand as well to the winner of the melee. Whoever wins the archery contest gets twenty thousand.”

“One hundred and thirty thousand golden pieces!” Tyrion gawks, nearly dropping his goblet. He sets it aside. “Forgive me, ser, if it might sound like I’m in doubt of your way with numbers, but isn’t that a bit excessive?”

“I never thought I’d ever hear those words from a Lannister’s lips.” Ser Garlan laughs heartily.

Tyrion shrugs. “Yes, well, this Lannister is from the sensible side of the family.”

“I never thought there was a sensible side to your family either.” Ser Garlan’s fingers tap a particularly bulky sheaf of parchment. “Worry not, my Lord Hand. The royal treasury is not as deep as it was during the Mad King’s rule, but it can afford this extravagance. In fact, the shipment that came from Pentos will more than cover the tourney, and the treasury need not draw from its current funds at all.”

Of the Free Cities, Pentos is the closest to King’s Landing, and it is no rare occurrence for Pentoshi trading ships to pass across the Narrow Sea to deliver goods to the capital; Tyrion does recall seeing an especially remarkable Pentoshi vessel a week ago, carrying carts of ceramics and boxes of silks and chests of gold. He thought those were simply for the trading outposts, but he appears to be wrong, if he correctly understands what Ser Garlan is saying. “Those were _gifts_?” He can’t hide the note of incredulity in his voice.

“Indeed, my lord.”

“From Pentoshi traders?”

“No,” Ser Garlan says, “those are from the magisters themselves.”

That is extremely generous of them, and it makes Tyrion wary. Gifts oft come with a price despite their name, and Tyrion would really rather know what this entails now than discover later that a debt has been unnecessarily incurred. “What do they want?”

At that question Ser Garlan shakes his head, scoffing good-naturedly. “I am merely Master of Coin, Lord Tyrion. My concern is with the Crown’s purse, not its diplomatic relations—which, I believe, falls under _your_ purview.”

“Fair enough,” Tyrion concedes with a sigh. He picks up his wine, taking a healthy gulp. “Wouldn’t it be more prudent to use these _gifts_ a bit more . . . sparingly? You said it yourself—the treasury’s not as full as it once was. And though I am not against rewarding those who deserve it, perhaps a part of the total prize could be instead allocated to other expenditures. We are, after all, still going to need to cover for the costs of more maids to prepare the feasts, as well as carpenters and smiths to work on the tourney grounds.”

“Begging your pardon, my lord, but perhaps I haven’t communicated myself clearly. That shipment is only the first to arrive. Two more are in transit as we speak, and according to this—” Ser Garlan pushes a sheet of paper towards Tyrion “—the Tiger Triarch of Volantis has sent a dozen of their best ships as offering to the Princess of Dragonstone, and each is also laden with cargo equivalent to a million golden pieces.”

This time Tyrion does drop his goblet, too stunned to even mourn the fine wine spilling across the floor.

 

****

 

Tyrion leaves Ser Garlan’s cabinet still ruminating the Pentoshi magisters’ and the Volantene Triarch’s bequests, and so intent is he on his inner thoughts that he does not pay enough attention to his surroundings whilst making his way to the Hand’s Tower. It is why when a spirited bundle of a child goes past, he almost gets knocked down but for the quick hand that reaches out to steady him.

Shaken out of his reflections on the seemingly innocuous yet odd developments on the Crown’s relations with two of the Free Cities, Tyrion then turns to look at the cause of disruption.   

Bright-blue eyes so closely resembling his niece’s own stare at him, shining with an all-too-familiar waywardness that he really ought to avoid. The boy’s blonde hair, lighter than his and Clarke’s, is as messy as a crow’s nest, and his clothes are stained and ragged, and his feet were bare.

And yet as dirty as he is, Aden Tyrell still looks every bit the son of a noble.

“Boy,” Tyrion says, heaving a reluctantly amused sigh, “what did I tell you about running about the Keep’s halls?”

Aden has the decency to look sheepish. “To not do it, my lord.”

“To not do it,” Tyrion agrees. “And what have you been doing?”

Aden clears his throat. “Running about the Keep’s halls, my lord.”

“Correct. And, by the state of your person right now, I’d say that you have also been running outside the castle gates. Am I right?”

“Yes, my lord.” Aden’s eyes are fixed on the ground.

“You’re practically a step away from being a peasant, and I for one do not think Ser Garlan would like that for his son. Who accompanied you”—Tyrion waves a hand towards Aden’s general person—“and let you look like this?”

Aden still does not meet his eyes as he replies, “No one, my lord.”

“Seven hells,” Tyrion says around a grin, “you ventured outside _alone_ again?”

The boy’s silence is all the answer Tyrion needs.

“Oh, you are sure to be the cause of your father’s greying hair.” Tyrion snickers. Ser Garlan is as cheerful as can be because things are evidently going well with the treasury, and Tyrion relishes the idea of knocking him down a few notches, just to entertain himself. After all, it is hilarious to see Ser Garlan the Gallant get exasperated because he still manages to sound, well, gallant about it; Tyrion supposes he did earn the sobriquet fair and square. “Off with you, then, and annoy your lord father for me.”

Aden purses his lips to keep from outright smirking and gives him a mock salute, and then he goes towards the direction from whence Tyrion came. He’s not running now, strictly speaking, but Tyrion can still classify it as a brisk walk.

He shakes his head. That boy has been living in the Red Keep since his birth seven years ago, and Ser Garlan has been considering sending him up to Winterfell to be fostered by the Warden of the North.

Tyrion smiles as he resumes his walk, thinking of the tomfoolery Aden might get up to in the lands of winter. He is a summer child, sure, but he has also been spending time with Tyrion’s niece. Aden looks up to Clarke, and he has heard, multiple times, stories of when she was in Winterfell.

 _The boy would love it there_ , he thinks, _and he would certainly bloom into someone worthy of his family’s sigil._

(The Warden of the North is known for her talent in nurturing Tyrell roses, after all.)

 

****

 

It is nearly dusk when Maya risks disturbing Clarke, who is still in her solar with the Young Dragon. She knocks with her customary beat, and her voice is a little tentative when she calls, “My lady?”

Despite previously teasing Clarke, Maya actually takes her feelings quite seriously, and she knows how important the Young Dragon is to her lady. She does not wish to interrupt whatever might be going on within this door, but she has been asked to summon the two to supper, Missandei also personally telling her that Her Grace is looking forward to it and would not want to wait any longer.

Maya has never actually met the Young Dragon prior to this day—Princess Alexandria was already a year into her campaign in Essos when Lord Griffin asked Maya’s father to send a daughter to the Red Keep as attendant to Brightclaw’s heiress. Being around Clarke Griffin’s age and having already met the heiress before several times, Maya was selected as compliance to this request. Though she was at first daunted by the responsibility, she still rose to the occasion, and from the moment her charge welcomed her to her service with a smile and a hug, Maya has known that she made the right choice.

“Come in, Maya,” she hears said charge answer, and Maya takes a deep breath to compose herself before hesitantly opening the door and stepping in. She finds Clarke seated on the plush red divan, side by side with the Young Dragon, with barely a breath between their bodies. Clarke’s hand is tangled on the crimson sash flowing over their thighs as if it were a blanket, and Maya hides a smile at the rosy tint on Clarke’s cheeks, its hue in sharp contrast to the blue winter rose now threaded through her golden hair.

Maya drops into a curtsy, lowering her head. “Her Grace has requested your presence for dinner, my lady, and has asked to remind the princess to be there as well.”

“As you were, Maya,” a light voice bids her, and Maya stands straight to see that the Young Dragon is looking at Clarke with an arched brow. “Where are your manners, Clarke?”

To Maya’s amusement, Clarke _rolls her eyes_ at the Heir to the Seven Kingdoms, and it is a testament to the bond between them that the Young Dragon just grins. Maya thinks it makes the Young Dragon look more like a normal girl than the powerful force of nature the realm knows her to be, and it somehow jars her; this is the person who will someday sit on the Iron Throne, to whom Maya’s own liege dares show such blatant impertinence—and is not even reprimanded for it.

Now Maya truly sees what Ser Bellamy has been talking about, how perhaps the kingdom’s future ruler has already found her intended royal consort. (It makes Maya quite giddy; it’s just like the stories she loves reading, and it is happening right in front of her eyes!)

Clarke clears her throat and sweeps aside the crimson sash, standing up with a dignity Maya is sure she’s lost at least several hours ago. “Forgive me, Your Grace,” she says with false benignity, though it just seems to spur Her Grace’s mirth. “This is Maya Westerling, a close companion. She has kept me from losing my sanity, alone as I was while you were gallivanting on the Dothraki Sea.”

“I was bringing forth the Queen’s justice, my lady—it was hardly gallivanting.”

“As my liege says, it shall be so,” Clarke says, so dryly that Maya chokes on a laugh. She feels her own cheeks redden when the Young Dragon gives her a conspiratorial wink, and Maya will surely be teased about this later, if Clarke’s half-smile is anything to go by.

“I should probably go and change now.” The Young Dragon then gets up herself and sketches them both a bow. “I’ll see you later, Clarke, Maya.”

Maya curtsies again, but Clarke just stands there and says, “Later, Your Grace.” When Maya turns to look, she sees that Clarke’s blue eyes are trained on the Dragon Heir’s retreating figure.

The Dragon’s Heir opens the door and shoots Clarke one last glance, the smile she gives now more genuine than teasing, before slipping out.

Clarke is still looking even after the door clicks close.

 

****

 

Daenerys wants a banquet prepared for her daughter’s homecoming, and though it’s in an exceedingly short order, her household manages the task.

“It’s not as fancy, but it shall do for the first night,” Tyrion comments. “We’ll just hold a better one on the night of the tourney.”

“Ser Garlan has found the funds enough for it, then?”

“In a manner of speaking.” On the Queen’s questioning look, he adds, “It’s nothing bad, Your Grace. I think.”

“That is not really comforting, Tyrion.”

“It’s nothing bad,” he repeats. “Perhaps a little bizarre, but nothing so pressing. We can just discuss its bizarreness when the Small Council convenes tomorrow. For now, just enjoy having dinner with your daughter whom you haven’t seen in years.”

The Queen stares at him and he stares right back, until she acquiesces with a nod. “Very well.”

They are on the raised dais in the Queen’s Ballroom, wherein tonight’s feast will be held as it takes less time. The venue is just about enough to seat the lords and ladies currently in King’s Landing, but in a month, that number will have increased tenfold; news of the tourney for the Heir’s return will likely be sent in the morrow, and that will bring forth folks highborn and not into the capital. By then only the Great Hall will be able to accommodate everyone.

It is not long before the herald signals that the feast will be beginning. A trumpet sounds, and then her daughter is striding into the room with her head held high, commanding the attention of her court without trying.

Alexandria is wearing a black doublet embroidered with deep-green dragons, reminiscent of Rhaegal’s scales. Upon her head is a silver coronet studded with rubies—the design similar to their forebear the Conqueror’s simple Valyrian-steel crown, the same one the Dragon Queen herself now dons—and from her shoulder falls a black silk half cape trimmed with green, fastened with a silver dragon brooch. Her black pants are tucked into black leather boots, and the Targaryens’ ancestral sword Dark Sister hangs by her side.

Daenerys smiles at the sight. Her daughter is the glory of the dragonlords incarnate.

 

In that Daenerys has absolute faith.

 

****

 

 _It was already morning when the fires at last died down, the sun peeking from the horizon, languid in its ascent to start the day. The ground on which she sat was black with soot, and logs and cinders surrounded her. Nothing but char remained of her sun-and-stars, his stallion, and the_ maegi _who dared try to trick her, and she could almost feel their ashes clinging to her skin._

 _Dany stared up when she sensed someone approach her, meeting the awed gaze of Jorah Mormont. Shakily Dany stood up on the last vestiges of her lord husband’s funeral pyre and swept her lilac eyes on the remnants of his_ khalasar _, who was looking at her the same way Ser Jorah was, and Dany knew they were her people now._

 _They were all that she had_ _—them, and her children._

 _Three creatures of her family’s lore had woken to the flame of the_ khal’s _death, and their blood was calling to hers. The black-and-red dragon stood proudly on her shoulder, its graceful neck and tail surrounding her in a tiny embrace. The cream-and-gold beast was clinging to her left leg, its claws sharp but not piercing her skin. The last one, coloured green and bronze, was cradled in her arm as it nestled itself onto the soft swell of her belly, a sound not unlike a purr rumbling from its throat, as if calling to their kin growing in Dany’s womb._

 _“Blood of my blood,” Jhogo murmured after laying down his_ arakh _on the ground, and soon her_ khalasar _had echoed the words, and with them joined were the songs of her children._

Soon _, Dany thought as she laid her other hand on her stomach, beside where her green child’s head was,_ your voice will join them. Until then, my fire and blood, rest and sleep well.

 _Dany tilted her head_ _—as impassive and cold as a statue though within was a firestorm of determination and resolve_ _—as she regarded her people._

Her people.

_Yes, there was much to be done, but Dany knew she would not be alone._

 

****

 

They go through dinner without incident, summerwine flowing freely and her daughter regaling them with tales of Vaes Dothrak and the City of Meereen, pointing out the changes that befell her mother’s first lands. “The politics of it all would be discussed tomorrow, of course,” Alexandria says cheekily, “because now I just really want to eat Westerosi food.”

Dany does not miss how her daughter’s eyes more often than not stray across the table to land on the Golden Griffin, of whom the Queen has been fond over the years. A smile touches her lips when she recalls the secret meeting she had with Lord Griffin a month ago, and if all goes well, then mayhap a wedding will be in their hands before the season is over.

Her lilac eyes catch sight of a Dornish lordling, a few tables away. From what Dany has heard from her handmaidens, he’s the one courting Clarke, and it appears that they are in amiable terms.

That simply won’t do, Dany thinks.

“Hey,” a soft voice to her left says, and she meets the steel-grey gaze of her Wolf, “I know that look. You’re planning something.”

She arches an eyebrow and calmly replies, “I know not what you’re talking about.”

Her Wolf squints suspiciously, tilting her head. She glances at the table Dany has been studying and spots the young lord. “Ah, I see.” She smirks, returning Dany’s cool gaze. “Would you like a wager, Your Grace?”

“On what terms?” Dany hears the challenge in that tone, and she never backs down from challenges.

“On whether or not the Young Dragon will make a move within the fortnight.”

“I will not be wagering on my own daughter’s affairs, Wolf.”

“So you don’t have confidence that she will?”

Dany glares at the rogue Stark. “ _I do_.”

“Splendid,” Arya says, “I myself give it a month, though.”

“What will the winner get?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure we’ll think of something.” Arya extends an arm. “What say you we shake on it, then?”

“What say,” Dany says, and she clasps her arm.

 

Dany has never been disappointed by Alexandria, and she doesn’t think she ever will be. And the Queen, for one, will not let a wager regarding her very own prospective good-daughter change that.

She sends a fleeting look towards the Dornish boy again.

Perhaps he can be useful, after all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kids, sorry if this chapter is a bit heavy on the GoT characters. Don’t worry; I haven’t forgotten that this is The 1OO story and that I should prolly focus on that side of the plot, but, y’know, kinda obsessed with my precious Stargaryen.
> 
> Love you all.
> 
> A few side notes:
> 
>   * Yes, if you watch [S01E10 of GoT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCqwybhGdk4), you’re gonna see Dany holding baby Rhaegal as described here.
>   * Yes, Sansa is the Stark who holds Winterfell.
> 

> 
> * Yes, she is with the beloved Rose of Highgarden.
>   
> 
> 
>   * For Ser Garlan Tyrell, I cast [Jamie Dornan](http://onceuponatimeserie.altervista.org/img/cacciatore/cacciatore1.jpg) .
> 



	8. The Dragonspawn

 

**Four Years Ago—310 AC**

 

_Small Council Chamber_

 

“I am more than capable of separating feelings from duty, Mother,” Alexandria asserted, and were it not for the anguish it was bringing Daenerys now, she would be proud of her child’s steadfastness. “You were the one who taught me that. It was why I never contested you when you decided to stay in Meereen instead of sailing for our home. Why I never said a word when you married Hizdaq, even though we both knew you loathed him. Why I kept quiet whenever you asked me to do something with which I don’t entirely agree. All I’m asking of you now is to extend me the same courtesy.”

The circular table of the Small Council was deserted but for the Queen, her heir, the Wolf Knight, and the Queen’s Hand. Missandei sat by the Queen’s side, not as her handmaiden but as her friend, listening and offering calm comfort to the distraught monarch as she always did.

Gods knew she needed it.

“Your Grace,” Tyrion began, upon catching his queen’s silently beseeching stare, and knowing that he should at least _try_ to dissuade the princess, vain though the effort might be, “we do not have enough details at the moment. The politics in Essos has always been precarious, and with the addition of this new player, it might be more treacherous than it ever was. You can’t just swoop in and handle something of which we do not know the full extent.”

“This _Ice Queen_ is spitting all over my mother’s sovereignty, my lord, and I cannot have that.” Alexandria’s green eyes were as ardent as that of her father’s when he promised to win the Iron Throne for Daenerys, to whom she then directed her gaze. “You are the _Khaleesi_ of the Great Grass Sea, and no one shall denigrate your name and not answer for it. I _will_ be flying for Essos, and I will show them that there is no impunity under the Dragon’s rule.”

 

****

 

_Maegor’s Holdfast_

 

She stood by her room’s large window, staring at nothing in particular. The breeze was soft against her skin, birds were chirping happily as they soared across the clear blue skies, and everything conspired to paint a perfect picture of tranquility, the world calm and peaceful.

And yet within, Clarke Griffin was anything but.    

Within was a cacophony of sadness and dejection, and she would have screamed if she thought it could help and dispel the gloom festering in her mind.

But nothing could help her, not really.

 

And nothing could stop what was coming, especially not her.

 

****

 

The skies were already tinged with lavender when someone knocked on her door, and though she gave no response, it still opened; only a few could enter the quarters of the Queen’s ward without express permission and get away with it, and so when Clarke turned, she was not at all surprised to see the Young Dragon walking in.

What surprised her was the demeanor with which the Young Dragon did it.

The Young Dragon’s steps were stiff, severely lacking in the effortless grace that typically suffused her every movement; and the green eyes Clarke so adored—usually bright and clear with vivacity particular to dragonlords who had unquestioned dominion over all they surveyed—were now muddled with regret and distress.

It was time, then.

Lexa stopped right in front of her—so close, and yet it felt as if she was as unreachable as the lands to which she would soon have to go.

Clarke felt her chest constrict painfully at that thought, every breath rough and bitter in her lungs. Her gaze flitted over every inch of Lexa’s face, wanting to commit them to memory.

For _soon_ that would be all that she had.

Clarke took a grounding breath, and forced herself to ask a question to which she already knew the answer. She still needed to hear it, though; perhaps she was a masochist at heart, or perhaps she just needed to dispel any fanciful notion that might linger in her subconscious before it could feed her false hope. “When do you leave?” Resignation settled over her words, coating them as surely as snow on Winterfell’s grounds, and she did not try to hide it for they both knew it would have been for naught, anyway.

Where Lexa was concerned, Clarke had always worn her heart on her sleeve.

Lexa’s jaw flexed, and her hands were clenched into hard fists. She looked like she wanted to glance away, but Clarke knew the Young Dragon would not—she knew that Lexa possessed the common decency to look her in the eye when she made Clarke’s world collapse. “At first light,” Lexa replied, her tone weary as could be, burdened as she was with the obligations she had by virtue of her bloodline.

Clarke shut her eyes to keep herself from crying. She wrapped her arms around herself—maybe it was to ward off the nonexistent chill in the capital, or maybe it was to keep herself from falling apart as she felt her heart twisting into an unrecognizable mess.

This was all too much, she felt too much— _everything was too much_. She did not fully understand it, young as she was, but she had a pretty good idea why everything _ached_.

Lexa stepped ever closer and cupped Clarke’s cheek, urging blue eyes to stare at her, seeing them shining with unshed tears. “I’m sorry,” she said—and it was apparent that the dragonlord was rendered brittle by Clarke’s own pain.

Clarke swallowed, and she thought she’s going to be sick. “Don’t be,” she told her, every word an ordeal to get out, every one searing her from within and leaving her mouth dry and her throat parched. “You’re the Dragon’s Heir, and you have a duty to your people.” Her shoulders twitched in a pitiful approximation of a careless shrug. “That’s why I—” She stopped and sucked in a breath, her insides coiling into something that deeply resembled what the stories had told her. But it’s much too soon, much too late—whichever the case, Clarke knew this was not the time, not when she knew Lexa would be going _away_ come morning. “That’s why you’re you,” she said instead, and every syllable was thick with that which she couldn’t freely express.

Lexa’s gaze was as piercing as Rhaegal’s teeth, and Clarke was not strong enough to try and shield whatever for which she might be searching. Maybe it didn’t matter, anyway; Clarke would present her very soul to her liege should it be asked of her, and she would not feel even a scrap of hesitation. “I’m coming back, Clarke,” Lexa said, after a while, and the vast greens of her eyes seemed to have found purchase within Clarke’s spirit itself.

Clarke’s stomach lurched; the sentiment was sweet— _it was_ —but Clarke knew things were not as simple as that. “When?” she asked, because Lexa might believe she’d be coming back, but how long would she be _away_?

The Young Dragon winced. “I don’t know yet,” she admitted, and she sounded terribly forlorn that Clarke’s young heart broke a little bit more.

Clarke jerkily nodded, accepting that fact, no matter how much it hurt, and she realized that she was shivering rather badly. She had no chance to comment on how ridiculous her body was being—seeing that King’s Landing had quite a humid climate—for the next thing she knew, Lexa was pulling her close, settling Clarke against her chest.

And against the Young Dragon’s heat, Clarke had absolutely no defense.

And so Clarke let herself succumb to it, lifting her own arms so that she could return the embrace. Lexa’s heart was beating beneath her ear, a tether to a reality she wanted to escape and stay in at the same time.

“Just promise you won’t forget me.” Clarke breathed the words against Lexa’s skin as she burrowed into the latter’s neck, inhaling the combined scents of leather and steel and _Lexa_ and ingraining them into the very fabric of her existence so that she herself may never forget.

“I promise,” was Lexa’s immediate reply. Her arms tightened around Clarke, almost to the point of discomfort, but Clarke was not bothered by it. In truth, she reveled in it and wanted even more of it, if only to reassure herself that at least for now, she _still_ had Lexa.

“Swear it.”

“I swear, Clarke Griffin,” Lexa complied without any protest, her voice the soft lull that was Clarke’s sanctuary, “by the old gods and the new, and by the blood that runs through my veins and that of my brothers, by all the stars in the sky, by my _khalasar_ , and by the iron seat of my ancestors, that I will come back home to you.”

Clarke let out a shuddering gasp as the full blow of Lexa’s sincerity washed over her. She struggled to push her words past her mouth, “Then that’s all I needed to hear, Dragonspawn.”

At that Lexa scoffed, though Clarke heard the hitch in it, and she knew Lexa was trying to cut through the strain that had them both reeling—Lexa’s vow was too pure, too absolute, catching them both off guard, and yet it felt _right_.

“‘Dragonspawn’?” the Young Dragon repeated, and she sounded a touch amused, Clarke was pleased to note. “Really?”

Clarke choked on a giggle, and she held Lexa tighter. Lexa didn’t seem to disapprove, instead squeezing Clarke back, as if to tell her that she understood. “I used to call Queen Daenerys that when I was just starting to live with you,” Clarke explained, bashfully, on the leather of Lexa’s armor. “I mean, in my mind. Never called her that to her face, of course.”

“Of course.” Lexa chuckled, nuzzling her nose against golden hair, imagining what her mother’s face would have been if the young obstinate griffin ever showed such brazen disrespect. It would have been brutally _hilarious_.

“Would have been burned to a crisp otherwise, I reckon.”

Not really, no, that’s not the Silver Queen’s way, especially with a child . . . and Clarke knew it well. Still Lexa played along. “For sure,” she easily agreed.

“And who would have kept you from trouble if that had happened?”

“No one, I think,” Lexa softly murmured against Clarke’s temple. “My mother would have lost her heir if I lost my bride.”

The way Lexa said those words, without an ounce of falsehood but full of honesty, made Clarke’s breath catch. “Would you even still want me as your bride when you return from this mission?” she asked, blinking back the tears prickling in her eyes.

Lexa drew back to meet Clarke’s azure gaze, and she tenderly cupped Clarke’s face with a hand while the other rested on the small of Clarke’s back. “Believe me, my lady,” Lexa replied, her voice tremulous with all the truths she bore, “nothing could ever make me happier.”

 

****

 

_The Queen’s Solar_

 

“I don’t like this,” Daenerys repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

“You know as well as I do that ruling seldom entails what one likes, Your Grace,” Tyrion pointed out. “And the princess, despite her age, understands that, and fully recognizes the importance of duty to her family.”

“Alexandria is young,” the queen insisted, though even she knew it was a weak objection. “She’s a _child_.”

“That’s not being fair now, is it?” Arya argued. “She’s older now than you were when you had her, and she had already proven her valour many times over on the battlefield. She wasn’t even ten summers old when she unified all the _khalasar_ s of Vaes Dothrak and when she scorched wights beyond the Wall. I believe she warrants a bit more of your trust, Your Grace.”

“I do trust my daughter, Arya,” Daenerys shot back. “But those times before were different. She was _within_ my reach. She was _within_ my sight. But with this she’s going to be on the _other_ side of the Narrow Sea and I’ll be stuck _here_.”

“Yes, because these people need their queen, and _those_ people need their _Commander_.” Arya took a deep breath. “I know you think you could handle everything, Your Grace, but you cannot be everywhere all at once. Your presence here is required more than in Essos, and as your child, Alexandria is the only one with strong enough a claim to enforce your rule there. There’s no other way. Alexandria saw it, and she has made her choice. You need to accept it.”

“We still have generals capable of commanding the Essosi forces in my name.”

“That we do,” Tyrion said. “But do you really think it would be enough?”

It was a fair point. What happened with the Second Sons left to carry out the queen’s justice in Meereen continued to be a sore subject, after all these years, and Daario Naharis’ betrayal still stung.

Back then, it was a younger Alexandria who had fixed her mother’s greatest city, and the government structure she had created and left behind held to this day.

The queen glared, but it was a feeble attempt at regaining control. “I cannot let my only heir go. I cannot have her leading a dangerous mission on her own without a way to reach her immediately should she need my help.”

“And you can’t just assume she’s going to need help.” Arya’s steel-grey eyes bore into Targaryen lilacs. “She’s far better than I was at her age, and that alone should count for something. And she has Rhaegal, who would rather die than let his rider take a hit.”

Daenerys knew that, and she knew she was being irrational as well. “I want her to stay here, Arya, with me.” She sighed. “I know she does too . . . to stay with her.”

“I know, Your Grace.” Arya gave her a tired grin. “But Alexandria knows the difference between what she wants and what she’s responsible for.”

She went on, “She has fierce dragon’s blood strengthened with a Great _Khal’s_ riotous freedom, and she cannot be restrained. She has to forge her own path—same as you. It was prophesied that your child would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World, and perhaps the time has come for her to do just that.”

 

****

 

**Weeks later**

_Meereen_

 

Lexa was settled on the Great Pyramid’s balcony, her feet dangling over its sharp edge. Rhaegal was on the roof, standing watch; he had always been the most pleasant of her brothers—not as stubbornly reckless as Drogon and not as passively aggressive as Viserion—though that could be just the connection between dragon and rider.

She recalled her mother remarking once how everyone looked happy enough from up here, and Lexa saw what she was talking about then. From this vantage point, people scuttling down the streets looked tinier than ants, going about their business with no care of others around them, saddled with no worries but their own.

Such normal lives, lived on such normal ways.

Lexa wondered, not for the first time, if she would have been happier were she born like that— _normal_ , a regular citizen of the ancient city, a regular follower of the Dragon Queen.

_Perhaps not._

“Stop being so miserable,” someone said behind her, and Lexa rolled her eyes.

“ _Shof op_ , Anya,” she grumbled, not looking back. Really, Lexa just wanted to quietly wallow in her own despair, but her bloodrider’s presence would put a stop to that.

“You and I both know you didn’t have to leave, _Zaldrīzo Ᾱnogar_. This was your own doing, and now you pay the price.”

“I _did_ have to leave,” Lexa said. “The unified _khalasar_ is mine, for all intents and purposes. I am not their _khaleesi_ , but I command them. I am sworn to the Dragon Queen, and my people shall uphold her integrity even in times of strife.” She slid out an obsidian knife from her sleeve, twirling it on her fingers. “And when someone had enough nerve to stomp over her good name, then I shall be the one to serve her justice.”

“And the Gold One?” Anya brought up, as tactless as ever. “Is she fine with this, not knowing when you are going home?”

Lexa swallowed thickly. “She understands duty the same way I do.”

“She’ll be waiting then?”

“She will.”

“And you?”

“A decade, a century. It matters not, Anya.” Lexa finally turned to her bloodrider, the Commander’s whip. “I will wait for her too.”

Anya’s gaze was exacting, and her lips curled in a sardonically cutting smile. “Then perhaps we should go to work now, so that you could hurry back to the comforts of _Rhaesh Andahli_ and finally bed your bride.”

As answer to that Lexa threw Anya her knife.

 

****

 

“Azgeda is steadily making their way south to Vaes Dothrak,” reported Luna, the Commander’s _arakh_.

“Azgeda,” Lexa mused, looking over the map spread out on her mother’s old war table. “Is that what they’re calling themselves?”

“Yes. It means _Ice Nation_ , possibly chosen because of their leader’s place of origin.”

“Where would that be?”

“According to our scouts,” piped in Lincoln, the Commander’s bow, “the so-called Ice Queen was a villager from Ibben, a land of frost, as cold as the Lands of Always Winter. She had fanciful notions of power and glory, and her plans had been in place since you and Her Grace sailed for Westeros.”

“And these plans include sullying my mother’s triumph and undoing her work on the Bay of Dragons?”

“That will be correct.” Lincoln handed her a parchment. “Gustus, a horselord who ventured on Samyrian, asked to give you this. He didn’t read Common Tongue, but he identified the writing. He thought it would be of help.”

Lexa unrolled the parchment, her frown deepening with each word she read, until she threw it down in disgust. Her eyes were as intense as ever, burning with the fire of her kin. “It’s not enough that she calls herself _queen_ whilst she intrudes on my mother’s lands, no. She’s calling herself the _Queen of the Dothraki_ too.”

“That’s stupid,” Luna said, as she picked up the paper.

“No kidding,” Anya muttered, rolling her eyes. “The Dothraki do not have _queens_. We have _khaleesi_ s.”

 

****

 

Her eyes were bright with the fire of her mother and the ferocity of her father. “ _Nyke Leksa_ _hen Targārio Lentrot, hen Valyrio Uēpo ānogār iksan._ ” She did not raise her voice, yet still it held the strength coursing through her veins. Her soldiers, battle-hardened though they were, couldn’t entirely repress the shudder that ran down their spines upon hearing her, so young and yet so cold and calculating, her every word delivered like the strike of the Valyrian sword strapped on her back, sharp and exact and hungry for royal retribution. “I am blood of the dragon, and I shall show them just what happens to those who raise their arms against the Dragonspawn.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lower your expectations; I am a disappointment to myself on a daily basis, and I wouldn’t want _your_ disappointment on top of that because you all deserve better.
> 
>   * Did we really think the Ice Queen didn’t have something to do with Lexa’s mission on the east
>   * But that’s really not important now let’s move on
>   * ALSO I know I said beware of disappointment with this but honestly your reviews validate me in more ways than one so thank you, fam.
> 

> 
> Translations:
> 
>   * _Zaldrīzo Ᾱnogar_ (High Valyrian) “Blood of the Dragon”
>   * _Rhaesh Andahli_ (Dothraki) “Land of the Andals”
>   * _“Nyke Leksa hen Targārio Lentrot, hen Valyrio Uēpo ānogār iksan.”_ (High Valyrian) “I am Lexa of House Targaryen, of the blood of old Valyria.”
> 



	9. V. The Tempest

 

“How long until we reach the Sunset Kingdom?” the one they call Young Crow asks for the third time in as many hours.

There’s a frustrated grunt. “You are incorrigibly vexing, do you know that?”

Young Crow merely smirks, entirely too amused with the hostility in her companion’s voice. “Well, it takes one to know one, Dragon’s Whip.”

Anya scowls, her lips curling in distaste. “Were you not a _guest_ ”—the word is spat out as if it were a curse—“I would have pushed you over the bloody deck the moment we set sail.”

“So you’ve said, a hundred times over. And yet here we are.” Young Crow tuts playfully. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“No, but I _think_ you’d tell me anyway.”

She pats Anya’s cheek, almost affectionate. The Whip stiffens and her glare intensifies, but she does not move away. “I think I’m growing on you.”

“As much as a fungus could grow on a log left out to the elements, yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“Is this a metaphor for how the Dragonspawn left _you_ out to deal with me?” The question is not asked maliciously but rather merrily, as if she finds the notion endlessly funny.

“Think what you will,” Anya grumbles, “but do it in silence, if you’re capable of that at all.”

 

They both already know the answer to that.

 

****

 

Lincoln watches with Luna as the Young Crow pesters the Whip, the former purposely getting in the latter’s way in going about the ship’s business.

“I’m surprised she hasn’t snapped yet,” Luna says, her dark hair dancing wildly in the sea breeze.

Lincoln chuckles. “I reckon she’s about a minute away from murder.”

“Understatement, that.” Luna snorts. “She’s way past her threshold for bothersome people. Mayhap we should take precautions before she finally decides to flip the Young Crow overboard.”

“You think she will?”

“It’s obvious she wants to.”

“Yes, but she’s as duty-bound as the both of us.”

“True.” Luna pauses, thoughtful. The smirk that forms on her face sets Lincoln ill at ease. He knows her proclivity for trouble matches that of Anya’s, and now there’s no Dragonspawn to balance them out; their Commander has resolved to arrive at the capital at least a day earlier, flying on Rhaegal instead of sailing the rest of the way. Something about picking roses somewhere in the north, she cited as the reason.

He sighs, silently praying to the Great Stallion that he’ll survive the other two of her bloodriders.

“I’d give my horse to see her try it, though.”

Lincoln does not doubt that in the least.

 

****

 

Lexa hasn’t realized how much she missed the capital itself until the second course is being served.

After the venison soup has been cleared off the tables, the serving ladies, along with the pages and squires attending to their own lords and knights, bring out the stuffed fowls cooked over open fires. The aroma of various herbs and spices used to treat the meat is mouthwatering, and Lexa is suddenly aware of the four years she has spent without Westerosi cuisine.

(She has cooks who know how to make them, sure, but Lexa has been more concerned with the complications of wars and politics than the affairs of her kitchen. Trying to replicate the dishes, especially without _all_ the ingredients at hand—because Essos’s agricultural landscape is drastically different from Westeros’s—is a lot more trouble than it is worth, and Lexa is above such frivolities, anyway, especially when she knows there are plenty of other, more _relevant_ , things on which she can focus her people’s efforts.)

She has learned to make do with what has been at hand when she was in Essos—Meereenese and Dothraki fare, the former too controlled and the latter too crude, but it’s not like she’s a stranger to those. She _has_ grown up eating their food. However, being the sole Targaryen heir has also quite spoiled her, and returning to her former eating habits has been quite a wicked lesson on self-indulgence.

Lexa supposes it seems a bit odd to dwell on it now, and a lot inconsequential, in light of all she has done and faced, but it is what it is. After all, sometimes the simplest things in life are the ones that give the sheerest joy.

When she again catches her favourite cerulean gaze, that truth rings even better. The shy smile Clarke sends her way is sweeter than any fruit, and no amount of summerwine could even begin to equal the warmth it sends racing to Lexa’s heart.

 

****

 

Lexa sees a young blond boy fumbling his way through the mass of people in the ballroom. There is something familiar about him—the slight build and the messy hair, and when his blue eyes then meet her green ones, she finally realizes just who he is.

Clarke notices Lexa’s interest riveted towards the boy, and she smiles against her goblet. She raises an eyebrow when Lexa turns to her with a questioning, though delighted, look, and changes seats to be right beside her.

“Is that—?” Lexa doesn’t finish the sentence as she slides next to Clarke, and she returns her gaze to the boy, who is now making his way to Ser Garlan’s side of the long table, next to Lady Leonette.

“It is,” Clarke says.

“He’s so grown up now.” There is wonder in Lexa’s voice, as if she cannot quite believe what she’s seeing.

Clarke laughs, and Lexa is drawn to the sound, her green eyes flicking to the source once again. “He’s almost a man grown, he keeps telling me. He’s become a bit of a handful, you know, always troubling his lord father.”

Lexa notes the familial affection in Clarke’s voice, and she is gripped with regret—of not being here to witness it blossom, _of not being here at all_ , but she hides her lament behind the usual banter, knowing now is not the time to dwell on such thoughts. “I can name one other blonde with a propensity for ‘troubling’ their guardians.”

“If memory serves me right—and it _always_ does,” Clarke shoots back with a cheeky grin, “I only got into those situations because a certain dragon was making it very difficult to say no.”

“Are you saying you can’t deny me anything?” The smirk is as evident on her lips as it is in her voice, though it is obvious in her eyes that she is genuinely elated with the possibility of Clarke confirming the charge.

Clarke scoffs, but her cheeks take on a healthy blush. Lexa thinks she is lovelier than any rose in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond. “That’s not what I said.”

“That’s not what you _didn’t_ say either.” Lexa shifts on her seat so that an elbow is resting on the table. Her upper body is now almost completely facing Clarke, and she leans even closer, not missing the subtle way Clarke’s eyes drift to her lips for a second. “And I am not hearing your refutation.”

Clarke then looks skywards, hoping for escape, as her cheeks flush further, positively burning. Lexa is intently watching her still, green eyes setting her skin afire without even a touch. “You won’t hear any,” she finally admits, her blue eyes fixed on a random point in the ceiling. Her voice is hardly above a whisper, and in the din of the ballroom it would have been lost were it not for Lexa paying close attention.

Lexa’s breath catches somewhere in her throat. “Is that an admission of your devotion I hear?” she asks good-naturedly, to hide the fact that in a few words, Clarke has managed to make Lexa feel as if her heart is blazing with dragonfire.

“Your Grace, please.”

“It’s Lexa, Clarke,” Lexa instinctively corrects, her heart thumping even wilder at Clarke’s answering smile. “And there’s no dishonor in being fully devoted to your dragonlord. If anything, you should embrace it with pride.”

The mock-haughtiness in Lexa’s voice is enough for Clarke to finally lower her eyes, meeting the verdant gaze of her stubborn dragonlord. “Are you not letting this go?”

Lexa arches an eyebrow, now, so arrantly like her mother. “Letting go is not really an area of my expertise.”

“Clearly, since we’re still talking about this.”

“We’ll stop once you give me what I want.”

“And what is it that you want?”

“Well, your vow of devotion, as a start.”

Clarke shakes with hesitant laughter, biting her lip as Lexa looks at her with eyes twinkling with mirth. “As long as you don’t mistake my devotion for anything else _, Your Grace_.” She says the title with relish, clearly mocking, and yet it just fills Lexa with a familiar sort of satisfaction.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my lady.”

If anything, Clarke’s laughter is what Lexa would be dreaming of tonight.

 

****

 

“It’s growing late,” Dany says, and it sounds more like an observation than an announcement.

Arya, fully cognizant of what the queen _says_ and what the queen _means_ , nods and immediately stands, helping her up. Missandei, ever mindful of the queen’s movements, steps behind them.

“Retiring to your chambers, Your Grace?” Lord Tyrion asks, his speech a bit slurred. There’s a streak of soup on his cheek and breadcrumbs on his beard, and he looks quite ridiculous, his image just barely redeemed by the badge pinned on the breast of his tunic.  

Arya smirks at him. “Perhaps you should try to cut off on your drinking, Imp,” she says, as she often does when Tyrion gets awfully intoxicated—which is more frequent than is advisable.

“Perhaps you should try to get a proper fool for the japes, Wolf,” he retorts.

“I thought _that_ was you.”

“Oh, shut up and bring the queen to bed.”

“Stop drinking before you say anything more inappropriate, Lord Hand.” Dany’s royal mask does not fall though amusement clearly laces her voice. “And do remember that we need you sharp and sober when we convene in the morrow.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Of course, Your Grace,” Tyrion agrees even as he takes another sip.

Shaking her head at the lost cause, Dany then turns towards her daughter, who has moved to sit with Lady Clarke earlier in the feast. The two have been engrossed in deep conversation ever since, almost as if they have forgotten that they’re not alone.

“It’s quite remarkable how suited they are together, isn’t it?” Arya notes.

“It is.”

“Don’t forget our wager.”

“As if I ever would.” Dany sounds offended at the mere idea.

“And there’s no compelling her to do as you command, all right?”

“We did not go over that rule when we struck the deal, Arya, but as a sign of goodwill, I will consent to it,” Dany allows imperiously.

Arya blinks. “That was easier than I anticipated.”

The queen smirks. “Well, I do believe that _offering_ her a little suggestion won’t be amiss—especially if it’s just to help her recognize what she has wanted all along.”

“I should have known.” Arya lets out a laugh. “I wish you good fortune in your efforts, in that case.”

Dany hums then strides over to Alexandria, who looks up, sensing her mother’s approach.

“Come to bid me good night, Mother?” she says, a smile curving her lips.

“As you say, my fire and blood.” Dany’s heart swells with happiness when Alexandria’s smile widened at the endearment. “I shall see you tomorrow, then?”

“Of course.”

Dany leans down and presses a kiss at the top of her daughter’s head. “Good night, Alexandria.”

“Good night, Mother.”

Dany nods at Clarke, who is watching the exchange with a fond expression. “Good night, Lady Clarke.”

Clarke tips her head. “Good night, Your Grace.”

 

****

 

As Dany walks away, a plan starts to formulate in her mind.

 

She bids the gods give Alexandria and Clarke a restful sleep tonight.

They’re both going to need it.

 

****

 

_Clarke warily stared at the fearsome creature sprawled over the snow-covered grounds. “Lexa . . . what if he gobbles me up?”_

_“He would not,” Lexa assured her. The apprehension in Clarke’s face did not lessen—and Lexa would not abide for anything at all to worry her bride._

_And so Lexa met her dragon’s gaze, and in a stern voice that marked her blood as a dragonlord more clearly than any physical attribute could, she said, “Rhaegal, this is Clarke. She is going to be my wife, and so she must be safe. You—and anyone else, for that matter—are not allowed to cause her harm. Do you understand?”_

_The green beast, whose eyes seemed to glimmer with the intelligence his master possessed, regarded the little blond stranger. To him humans could be divided into only two categories: those who had his blood, and those who did not. Thus he had judged every human he had ever met, and only three had ever been put in the first category._

_But this one, though, was different, and he did not quite know what to make of it._

_Still, he understood what the Young Blood wanted from him, and so he resolved to give this little human a chance._

_When the little human finally laid her little hand on his green scales, he knew that he, as well as the Young Blood, made the right choice._

 

****

 

“I am not the only dragon who missed you, you know,” Lexa says. The feast is still ongoing, her mother insisting that her subjects continue to partake in the revelry even after she has left it.                  

“I was _waiting_ for you to say something about him.” Clarke beams at her, looking tremendously happy, and Lexa feels herself melt. “How is he?”

“Well, you heard him growling earlier, surely.” Lexa shrugs. “He’s . . . Well, he’s Rhaegal. He hasn’t really changed that much.”

“That makes at least one of you then. That’s good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lexa says with fake aggravation.

“Really?” Clarke looks at her skeptically. “Have you seen you?”

“What?”

“You’re you, Lexa,” Clarke explains—as if _that_ makes any sense whatsoever—waving a hand vaguely in front of Lexa’s face. “I’m fairly sure everyone in your court will agree with me.”

“Of course I’m _me_ , Clarke.” Now Lexa looks legitimately perplexed. “What’s that even supposed to _mean_?”

“Honestly,” Clarke says around a heavy sigh, “your people can’t stop themselves from saying how clever you are, but right now I can’t see it at all.”

Lexa’s lips jut petulantly, more in confusion than real annoyance. “That’s uncalled for.”

“Is it?” Clarke’s eyes are skies within these halls, Lexa believes. “Come on, Lexa. You have to be aware that you yourself have changed. I mean, look at you.” She smirks. “You’ve . . . grown.”

Lexa blinks, before working out what Clarke has said. She groans upon the realization, and Clarke lets out a full-throated laugh that surges through Lexa’s soul like incessant waves. “Why do we always remember my mistakes?”

Lexa will happily drown in the richness of Clarke’s laughter. “Because they’re seldom and far in between, and we must savor every second when they do happen.”

“Well, what about you, then?” Lexa retorts. “There was that time you almost set yourself on fire atop Highto—”

“All right, first of all, that was an accident, and—”

“—wer and scared the guards—”

“—second of all, that was not _entirely_ my fault—”

“—and we had to plead with Rhaegal to not set _them_ on fire—” Lexa is cut off unceremoniously when Clarke none-too-gently places a hand on her mouth.

“I thought we _swore_ not to talk about that _ever_ ,” Clarke admonishes. All she gets in response, as it is, are raised eyebrows. Clarke can feel Lexa’s smirk forming beneath her palm, and she feels herself warming up, realizing just what she has done.

She has silenced the Queen’s own daughter, the Heir to the Iron Throne, with her _hand_.

Before Clarke can snatch her hand back, however, Lexa reaches for her forearm, moving it just so and allowing herself to press a long kiss on Clarke’s wrist.

With how hard her pulse is going, Clarke will be surprised if Lexa can’t feel it, pounding beneath that sinful mouth (. . . about which she really shouldn’t be thinking if she hopes to survive _this_ ).

Lexa’s green eyes are captivating, burning as they meet Clarke’s gaze, even as her lips leave Clarke’s skin. Her fingers are gentle as she adjusts her grip, taking their place between Clarke’s own.

It seems their hands really are made just for this—for holding each other—the touch so simple and yet still able to leave an impression so profound that they feel it etched into their very bones.

 

****

 

They only release their hold when they part for the night, hours after the feast has ended.

 

****

 

(And even then, reluctance tinges their whispers of “Good night.”)

 

****

 

(And even then, the dragon dreams of blue skies above expansive wild forests.)

 

(And even then, the griffin dreams of expansive wild forests beneath blue skies.)

 

****

 

Lexa wakes up feeling far more rested than she has ever been in the past four years. She dresses slowly, just basking in the fact that she _can_ —no dire situations are awaiting her attention, and no crucial decisions must be made in an instant.

She decides to wear charcoal-grey breeches and a simple deep-green shirt, and she lets her hair fall in loose waves instead of putting them back in their elaborate braids. After carefully tying up her dark-brown boots, she takes Dark Sister from its place on the bed, adjusting its straps so that it comfortably hangs from her hip.

She is just about to exit her chambers when someone knocks.

“Come in,” she says.

The door opens, revealing a young girl. “Good morning, Your Grace?” She trembles visibly as she curtsies, and her nerves transformed the greeting into a question.

“Good morning,” Lexa says kindly, quietly, not wanting to alarm the poor girl—she’s curtsying so low that Lexa is sure she’s going to topple over at the slightest distraction. “That’s enough now, uhm . . . What’s your name?”

The girl bows even lower, and for a second it seems that she really is about to fall down to the ground. To Lexa’s relief, though, the girl stands right up without causing herself injury. “Tris, Your Grace.”

“Tris.” Lexa nods. “What is it that you need?”

“Lady Missandei sent me here to help Your Grace get ready.”

“Ah.”

“It seems Your Grace has no need of my assistance, though.” Tris tilts her face down. “Forgive me for saying so.”

“It’s quite all right, Tris.” Lexa smiles. “I am capable of doing things myself. Should Missandei send you—or anyone, actually—again, kindly remind her of that for me, will you?”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“Will that be all, then?”

“I was also tasked to escort you to breakfast.” Tris clears her throat. “If it pleases Your Grace.”

Lexa inwardly winces. One of the things she hasn’t missed at all in court life is the constant need for etiquette and such, where everyone has a proper place and a proper role. And as the Dragon’s Heir, there is no one more subjected to scrutiny than she is, and so it is necessary to play her own role as admirably as possible.

Her people’s approval is worth the effort, most of the time. For the rest, though, Lexa admits that it can get a tad tedious.

Still, that Lexa gets tired of all the formalities required of her station is not the girl’s fault. So she just huffs a laugh. “Might as well.”

Tris takes that as an acceptance, so she opens the door wider, allowing Lexa to pass through it first and falling in step a couple of feet behind.

“So am I to dine with my mother?” Lexa asks a while later, not really caring about the answer and just wanting to dispel the girl’s unease, which is almost palpable.

“No, Your Grace. I believe the honour falls to Lady Clarke.”

Lexa almost misses a step at the mention of Clarke’s name, and she covers it up by turning around to face the girl. “What was that?”

The girl’s eyes widen at the excitement in Lexa’s tone. “Oh, uh, I mean, Lady Clarke will be breaking her fast with you, Your Grace.”

Lexa registers the shock in Tris’s expression, and it is warranted—Lexa feels her lips tugging up into an uninhibited smile. She doesn’t even try to rein it in.

Perhaps Tris sees something else in Lexa’s face, though, because for the first time since their meeting, Tris loosens up. The tension in her shoulders is released, and she even smiles back at the Young Dragon. “I see _that_ particular fact is what pleases Your Grace.”

Lexa just shrugs.

Tris offers her an easy grin. “We shan’t keep her waiting then, shall we, Your Grace?”

“We shan’t,” Lexa agrees, continuing on their way. “Clarke’s always been impatient, especially when it comes to food.”

“Oh, so that is not a recent development.”

Lexa barks out a laugh. “No, absolutely not. When we were children, she used to get really mad when I take too long readying for mealtimes, and the only way I can slink back into her good graces is by offering her half my portion of sweetmints.” She pauses then, brows furrowing, and her tone turns unsure. “She still loves them, does she not?”

“She still does, Your Grace,” Tris assures her.

“That’s good.”

Tris nods, and she absently mentions, “It’s what her suitors have been offering her, whenever they come by.”

The only reason why Lexa does not whirl around at that is the boy who bumps into her and subsequently crashes on the floor. The pained groan distracts Lexa from an entirely too upsetting series of thoughts, wherein the only discernible words are _Clarke_ and _suitors_.

_Clarke. Suitors._

_Of course._

“Ow,” the boy mumbles, rubbing the side of his head, further messing up his blond hair.  

“Aden?” Lexa says, diverted from the storm brewing in her mind. She kneels down and looks Aden over, ensuring he has gained no injuries. “Are you hurt?”

Aden’s eyes shines with awe as they look at the Dragon’s Heir. “I . . . uhm. You, ah, Your Grace, I’m s-sorry,” he stammers, trying and failing to lean away from the warm touch.

“Calm down, _shekhikhi_ ,” Lexa says, the endearment falling out of her lips without her conscious thought, and Aden stills, his eyes widening. She repeats, “Are you hurt?”

“No, Your Grace.” An eyebrow arches, unimpressed. “Stings. A little,” he confesses. Then upon seeing Lexa’s worried frown, he hastily adds, “Nothing too serious, though! I promise!”

“So a maester is not necessary?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“If you say so.” They hold each other’s gazes for several more beats before Lexa stands, guiding him up with her. She brushes her fingers through his hair, tidying it up as much as it can be, and flicks off the dirt on his collars and sleeves. “Now, where’re you headed that warrants such haste, Aden?”

“Breakfast with Father,” he answers, and he belatedly tacks on, “Your Grace.”

Lexa nods, smiling softly. The boy reminds her of her own self, in her youth. The same fondness for the boy she felt years ago comes back in full force, and it’s as if she never left. “Go on then. And be more careful, do you hear? If you can’t stop yourself from running, at least make sure you’re not harmed when you do it.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” He bows clumsily, and he resumes his merry way.

“And Aden?” Lexa calls again, still watching his retreat.

Aden turns abruptly, his feet almost tripping over themselves. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“Find me later, will you?” She grins at his dumbstruck look. “I think we have a lot to catch up on.”

Lexa feels proud when he beams at her, lifting his hand up in a salute. “As you say, Your Grace.”

 

****

 

It isn’t long before doubt plagues Lexa’s mind again, the short reprieve Aden’s presence has lent her now gone.

_Of course Clarke has suitors . . . She’s Clarke. Only the blind and the foolish wouldn’t see how special she is._

Lexa’s throat is drier than it ever was when she was in the Red Waste. _Am I too late then?_

It is that thought, more than any other, that makes Lexa quicken her pace, Tris all but running after her.

She just really needs to see Clarke _now_.

 

****

 

When Lexa sees her, Clarke is not alone.

Maya, as Clarke’s friend and handmaiden, is there—that’s expected, and that’s all right with Lexa.

What is decidedly not all right, Lexa believes, is the lad sitting with them.

The lad—the _boy_ , Lexa thinks vindictively, for he seems barely able to even grow a proper beard—is sitting to Clarke’s right. He has floppy brown hair, a few strands falling across his brows, no doubt a part of the charming rascal image he’s hoping to project. Lexa uncharitably thinks he looks quite like one of those bastards in the Bay of Dragons who are in severe need of a good shear.

He’s wearing clothes of the sandy Dornish aristocrats, the golds and yellows looking admittedly good against his tanned skin. His smile is pearly white as he tells Clarke something Lexa, on account of the distance between them, doesn’t hear. Nor does she particularly want to—not when Clarke throws her head back and laughs, exposing the elegant column of her neck to hungry eyes . . .

Eyes that are _not_ Lexa’s.

The Dornish boy is unashamedly staring at Clarke and Clarke’s neck and Clarke’s _everything_ , and Lexa sees red.

Something foreign—something feral—comes to life within Lexa’s chest, straining against its chains. There is a darkness curling and coiling in the pit of her stomach, howling for freedom, and if Lexa didn’t know any better, she’s sure she would have breathed fire right there and then.

Her fists are clenched tightly by her sides as she regards the scene—the easygoing manner with which the boy talks to Clarke, the timid smile that lingers on Clarke’s lips. There is a certain simplicity to their interaction, a sense of normalcy, that perturbs Lexa to no end.

 _Normalcy_.

She is beginning to truly _hate_ that word.

Lexa might wield almighty power over this damn realm, but that is the _one_ thing that she can’t ever provide Clarke.

She catches Maya’s gaze then, and the lady opens her mouth to greet her, but Lexa firmly shakes her head.

Without saying a word, she turns away and leaves.

 

****

 

Maya grimaces when the Young Dragon all but blasts out of dining room, unnoticed by either of her companions. She meets Tris’s eyes, and the younger girl looks equally lost about what to do.

Clarke seems to sense Maya’s distress. She lays a hand on Maya’s arm, and Maya can’t help but flinch at the touch. “Maya? What’s wrong?”

Maya is nearly panicking, and Tris is no help, weakly shrugging before tiptoeing back out the way she came from without a sound, leaving Maya to fend for herself.

Not that the poor girl can do anything to stop this disaster, mind, but some support would have been appreciated.

Maya forces down her nerves. She has never breathed a word of lie to her friend before, and she really does not want to ever do it, but desperate times . . . call for dishonesty, apparently.

“I’m just, uhm, hungry, my lady,” she says, almost cringing. She hasn’t thought she’d ever hold herself in such contempt. She refuses to meet Clarke’s eyes, and she instead directs all her concentration on the succulent fare laid out on the table.

 _Gods be good_ , Clarke incorrectly takes Maya’s focus on the food as corroboration to her statement, and she laughs. “Oh, Maya. I am too. But Her Grace isn’t here yet. It would be impolite to start without her, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, I understand, my lady,” Maya mumbles, shifting her gaze to a slice of pigeon pie, still avoiding Clarke’s unknowingly knowing look.

Of course, Clarke interprets _that_ incorrectly too, gods bless her lovely friend. “No need to be embarrassed.”

“As you say, my lady.”

Lord Finn chuckles, then. “Perhaps my presence is adding to her discomfort, Lady Clarke,” he says, and Maya wants to both laugh and cry at how accurate that sentence is. “I think it’s best I take my leave now.”

If he weren’t actually nice—though he’s also kind of a naïve little duckling, sometimes—Maya would have yelled at him already. It really _is_ his fault—he just doesn’t know why _exactly_ that is and what the full extent of his trespass is.

“Thank you for the company, my lord,” Clarke says pleasantly, as Lord Finn stands up and kisses the top of her hand.

“I’ll be seeing you, my lady.” He tilts his head at Maya, and then he walks away.

Clarke lets out a sigh of relief when he’s out of earshot, her shoulders dropping. She eyes the sweetmints hungrily. “Where in the Seven Hells is the Dragon’s Heir, anyway?” she mutters, sounding peeved.

Now Maya _really_ wants to cry. How is she supposed to get out of this mentally unscathed?

 

****

 

Daenerys hears her daughter’s arrival before seeing it, for the tempest that is Alexandria is impossible to steer clear of when left unconstrained. The Unsullied guarding her halls are taught to give warning when the Dragon’s Heir is in one of her moods, and so it is that their spears beat a steady rhythm on the floor, and Daenerys knows what she’ll see when the large doors are finally thrown open.

The storms of Dragonstone itself is no match for the one residing behind Alexandria’s eyes now, and Daenerys reminds herself to give Tris fair compensation for being unwittingly exposed to this kind of intensity.

_Poor child, perhaps forever scarred with this. Your sacrifice won’t be in vain._

“Good morning, Alexandria,” she greets her daughter, who is now walking back and forth before her window. “Have you eaten?”

Alexandria’s steps falter for a second before resuming their dizzying pace. “No,” she says shortly.

“I thought you’d like to dine with Clarke,” Daenerys offers, the picture of innocence. “Was I wrong?”

Alexandria shakes her head.

“Did you have a row?”

“For that to happen, we’d have to actually _talk_ , Mother.”

“Alexandria,” Daenerys starts, injecting just the right amount of rebuke in her tone, “did you not go to meet her?”

“I did.” Alexandria finally stops. She faces the window, gripping the sill. “She’s with someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some Dornish lord.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’?” Lexa turns to her, eyes glinting dangerously. “Do you know who he is then?”

“Of course I do,” Daenerys answers nonchalantly. “Lord Finn of the House Collins, which now holds some control in the Dornish court. Lady Ellaria finds them quite useful in keeping the desert dwellers happy.” She hums, as if in thought. “You’re going to treat a lot with his House when you sit on the Iron Throne.”

Daenerys can almost hear the curses Alexandria is stopping herself from saying. She studies the tautness in Alexandria’s overall bearing. “I see,” her daughter bites out, the two words sounding as scornful as can be.

“You’ll probably have to treat with him _and_ House Griffin together, though,” Daenerys adds, before taking a sip of her tea.

“What do you mean?”

 _Dangerous_ , Daenerys thinks, _has never been as appropriate a word to describe you as it is right now._ “Well, Clarke is of marrying age, now, isn’t she?”

“But a _lordling_ , Mother?” Alexandria scoffs. “I’ve never even heard of House Collins before now. Lord Griffin can’t marry off his heir to some unknown House.”

“Well,” Daenerys says, bracing herself to deliver the perfect strike, “a lot has happened in your absence, Alexandria.”

It gets her the response she wants.

Alexandria’s head snaps up, and her gaze is as lethal as that of her brothers’. “I won’t allow this to happen, Mother,” she declares, tone brooking no argument. “I won’t allow some . . . some _boy_ to just swoop in and take her as his bride!”

And now for the final hit; Daenerys remains calm in the face of her daughter’s agitation, and she asks, sounding as sensible as ever, “Isn’t that Clarke’s choice, though?”

“She will be _my_ bride!” Alexandria roars, and in the moments that follow only the breathing of the two dragons can be heard.

Daenerys regards her daughter with the practiced coolness of _the_ queen, searching for something in Alexandria’s eyes. She finds it, and a small smile graces her lips. “And so she will be,” she murmurs, a hint of gratification colouring her tone. She stands up then, and approaches her daughter, who seems shaken by her own outburst.

The fight seems to leave Alexandria as quickly as it came, and she stares helplessly at her mother. “I—” she begins to apologize, but Daenerys won’t have any of it.

“Don’t you dare ask for forgiveness where it’s not needed, Alexandria.”

Her daughter grits her mouth close.

“You do love Clarke, don’t you?”

“I do.” There is not a dollop of hesitation, no waver in Alexandria’s voice. “I always have.”

“You know she’s not a little girl anymore.”

“I’m aware, Mother.”

“So you don’t doubt what you feel, even then?”

“Never.”

The assuredness makes Daenerys smile. “Then do something about it.”

Alexandria blinks at her, so like Arya when Daenerys says something she can’t comprehend the first time of hearing it. “I can’t just—”

“Yes, you can,” Daenerys pushes, and her eyes are lilac flames. “ _Nobody_ takes from dragons, Alexandria. We both know this.”

Alexandria swallows hard, jaws clenching. The flames of the dragonlords are dancing in her green eyes too. “Clarke is Clarke’s, first and foremost,” she tries.

“And you are yours, but you are also the realm’s,” Daenerys tells her. “And Clarke _is_ of the realm as well, wouldn’t you say?”

Alexandria nods.

“It’s only just that you take claim of what’s yours as well, no?”

Daenerys sees the moment her daughter’s burning forests harden into emeralds, indomitable and unyielding in their gaze. “Yes, Mother.”

The Mother of Dragons tips her head, satisfied.

 

Her work here is done.

 

****

 

“Ah, I see the house of red stone,” Young Crow says, grinning from ear to ear, as she sits with Luna by the ship’s prow.

“The Red Keep,” Luna corrects, amused by the thought of the castle being called a mere house. “It’s called the Red Keep.”

“The Red Keep,” Young Crow repeats. “And the chair the Queen sits on is the Iron Throne?”

“That’s right.”

“Will the, uh, _Zokla_ be there standing beside her?”

“She almost always is.”

“Good.” Young Crow stares at the Red Keep’s parapets. “What is the proper word again, Luna?”

Luna smiles at Young Crow’s enthusiasm. “It’s _Wolf_.” She then looks at the Red Keep herself, and excitement at being home at last thrums in her blood.

“ _Wolf_.” Young Crow says the word carefully, making sure to get it right. “I’ll be seeing the Wolf.” She reaches down to fiddle with the braces attached to her left leg, tracing the Qohorik runes etched onto the smooth Valyrian-steel surface.

“Yes,” Lincoln says, taking his place beside them. He nudges her shoulder, laughing when she pushes him away. “You’re going to meet your sister’s good-sister soon, Young Crow.”

“She would have been happy, that I made it this far. Wouldn’t she?”

“Not just _this_ far. You’re going to the _capital_.”

“Yes,” Young Crow breathes, and her companions kindly don’t comment on the tears brimming in her eyes. “Yes, I am.”

 

The capital beckons, and they are answering its call.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was delayed in my self-imposed deadline. I hope you liked it, nevertheless.
> 
> A few side notes:
> 
>   * Did you guys see how I spent like three paragraphs basically talking about food? LOL
>   * Lexa’s a gay possessive dragon, basically.
>   * Also let’s talk about possessiveness and stuff next time cuz I can’t right now I’m drunkkk
> 

>   * For Lady Leonette Tyrell, I cast [Diane Kruger](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/04/27/19/3397F13900000578-3562062-image-m-72_1461780503352.jpg). (No srsly look at photos of Dornan and Kruger and combine them and see whatcha get. It’s a very minor character but still.)
> 

> 
> Translations:
> 
>   * _shekhikhi_ (Dothraki) “little light,” used as a term of endearment for children
>   * _Zokla_ (High Valyrian) “Wolf”
> 



	10. VI. A Lovely Morning

 

Clarke is fuming.

And perhaps that is not quite the proper word to adequately describe what is bubbling beneath her practised mask of dignified restraint, _but_ she’s also not quite in the right mindset to think about what is proper and what is not, and the only thing she is sure of right now is that she _is_ upset and _terribly_ annoyed.

She’s upset and annoyed because _Lexa_ —the Seven Kingdoms’ gods-damn pride and joy, the heir to the throne, the glorious and mighty Young Dragon— _that_ Lexa has stood her up and hasn’t shown her face all morning, and it leaves Clarke awfully confused.

That, and she’s also awfully hungry.

Betraying all those years and lessons on manners and decorum has never been as agreeable an idea as it seems right this moment. The aroma from their food is still mouthwatering despite their rapidly decreasing heat, and Clarke is on the verge of actually reaching out and consuming her meal like she’s wanted to do since Lord Finn left.

She’s been tapping an unsteady beat on the table’s oaken surface just to keep her hands from acting on her impulses, and she can tell that her agitation is rubbing off on Maya, who has been unusually fidgety—even taking into consideration her own hunger—and if Clarke weren’t so focused on thinking about Lexa and her obvious absence, she would have spared a moment to offer her handmaiden a well-earned apology.

As it is, she’s rather certain that were she to open her mouth, the only words she would be able to say are strongly worded admonitions and perhaps some threats of reckoning, aimed solely at the stupid dragonlord (and her stupidly pretty face).

And to think that Clarke had been looking forward to seeing her since they parted last night! The banquet passed both too slowly and too quickly, and all Clarke can remember now is how lovely it had been to have her friend again. It was like no time had passed at all since Lexa embarked for her mission in Essos, and though she looked different, all grown up, she’s _still_ Lexa, at her core—the little warrior princess who offered Clarke friendship in the cold of Winterfell all those years ago.

Their banter was as easy as ever—the effortless repartee borne of a shared past and all the things that entailed, memories tinged with the hazy glow of youth and self-indulgent promises spoken with the kind of solemnity only children could ever be truly capable of—and Clarke found it refreshing after all the hours she spent navigating the queen’s court and interpreting the double meanings embedded within each syllable uttered in the Red Keep’s halls.

And it all seems so foolish now, how Clarke hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off her face and how she clutched her hands close to her chest—the same hands that Lexa held, while her stupid green eyes shone in the dark and those stupidly plush lips murmured sweet good nights and how the lilting tones of her stupid velvety voice haunted Clarke into a fitful slumber filled with dreams of forests and the summer sky.

Clarke thus woke up feeling like she barely slept at all, but her irritability was somehow lessened when Maya told her that “Her Grace the Queen Daenerys has bid you break your fast with her daughter, my lady,” and so Clarke—being Maya’s painfully naïve lady, apparently—wore the summer dress that brought out the blue in her eyes (“It makes them seem that much more like the sky, my lady.” “Is that so?” “Yes, my lady.”), and she even let Maya talk her into pinning her hair up in an elegant bun but for several strands escaping to frame her face in gentle waves (“Like those paintings you so love to admire!”).

(“You look good, my lady,” Maya told her, and Clarke knew it to be true when she faced the mirror.)

 _And all of it for naught_ , Clarke thinks now, when the one to whom she wanted to endear herself decided that not showing up is the good course of action.

_Gods damn._

She’s helpless to expel a harsh sigh, and it seems to shake Maya out of her own reverie, for she squeaks in surprise. Clarke is just about to tell the poor lady that they _should_ probably eat now instead of waiting for the next war—or, well, the Young Dragon’s return —whichever came first, for to be fair, neither seems very likely at this point.

Either way, the food can’t be let go to waste.

Clarke’s not as callous as that, after all.

But before she can express this thought—making sure that all sorts of curses at their current situation that she might accidentally give voice to are shoved away—there’s the sound of a throat clearing, and then Clarke turns to see the very source of her morning’s distress.

And, well, it is really _unfair_ that the sight of her alone is enough for all said distress to fade away.

Lexa doesn’t even seem to be trying to do _anything_ , dressed as she is in a simple shirt that still does a positively fine job of bringing out the green of her eyes. Her sleeves are rolled to her elbows, exposing tattooed arms, and the artist in Clarke longs to study the patterns and the designs and perhaps paint them herself.

(Whether it will be on canvas or on the rest of Lexa’s skin remains to be debated.)

(Or perhaps it is just Clarke’s hunger talking.)

Lexa stands as proud as ever, exuding silent power—the kind that practice cannot hope to perfect, the kind with which one has to be born in order to effectively wield—and her lips are twisted into a kind of smile that Clarke can’t remember ever seeing before. It’s . . . different from the ones from last night, colder than a storm and perhaps just as cutting, but Clarke would be damned were she to say that it wasn’t as _disarming_.

She strides closer before Clarke can even think of standing up and curtsying, and she halts Maya’s movement with a raised hand. “Please,” she says, her voice smooth and cool and everything it wasn’t the night before, “don’t bother. I owe you an apology, after all, for making you wait. It is not an acceptable behaviour, and for that I truly am sorry.”

And there’s something in her voice that just sounds . . . _wrong_ to Clarke, but she can’t pin down exactly what it is. She’s not given a chance to do so, for Lexa then sits down, directly in front of her.

“Shall we?” she asks, raising her eyebrows, and she picks up her cutlery and begins to eat.

Clarke cannot stop the incredulous look on her face. After everything, here Lexa is, _acting like a right royal prick_ , and she doesn’t even have the grace to wait for Clarke and Maya to settle comfortably. (Granted, they don’t need to since they didn’t actually move, _but still_.)

She turns to her handmaiden, but Maya’s head is bowed, and she’s focusing on her plate. She seems to be studiously ignoring Clarke’s stare, and Clarke will surely question her about this strange behaviour later, but for now, Clarke doesn’t have a choice but to follow their liege’s lead.

Clarke is only on her third bite (yes, she’s counting, because she waited so long for this) when Lexa breaks the silence that has settled over them, heavy and tense.

“I’m sorry,” she says, frowning at her vegetables. “I . . . know I’m acting like an idiot. A spectacularly rude idiot.” She sighs, setting her fork and knife down, and she meets Clarke’s curious gaze. “I intended to be here earlier than this, but I—” She averts her eyes again and huffs. “I just had a talk with Mother.”

Maya wheezes at that, choking on a sip of tea. Lexa looks alarmed for a bit before smoothing her expression again, and Clarke misses the exchange between the two of them, busy as she is rubbing circles on Maya’s back.

“Are you all right?” Clarke asks.

Maya nods vigorously. “Hmm.” She gestures at the tea. “Didn’t expect it to be so cold, is all, my lady.” She sounds oddly strained. “Worry not.”

Clarke studies her for a moment more, gauging her words, but Maya digs into her meal again, and so Clarke shrugs and returns her attention to Lexa, and she nearly chokes on nothing herself.

She’s having trouble remembering that she’s supposed to be mad at the dragonlord when she’s looking like that, picking at an apricot the way she used to when they were but children, her mouth turned down in a pout when she finds that the softness of the fruit is not to her liking.

(She’s so young like this, this royal heir, and Clarke really should build better defenses against her unnaturally mesmeric charms.)

“Too ripe?” Clarke asks when she finds her voice.

Lexa starts, and for a moment there’s a flash of _something_ in her eyes, but it might as well have been a trick of light for it’s gone just as fast. “Yes.” She smiles, again that cold smile that really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. “I should have probably come sooner—it might have been not this bad earlier this morning, right?” There’s something in the way she says it that pokes at Clarke’s attention, and a niggling at the back of her mind wants her to pursue this line of inquiry and make sense of what’s really happening.

But Clarke knows how to pick her battles, and now is not the time for one.

“Probably,” she just agrees, chuckling, and she picks a pastry. “If anything, you might have saved me from making small talk with one of the Dornish envoys. It would have surely been easier for him to see that I’m devoted to the Dragon’s Heir if you were here to lend credence to that statement, no?”

Lexa’s eyes widen. “What?” she asks, the word a strangled syllable.

“Hmm?” Clarke looks up from the muffin she is inspecting, an eyebrow raised, and she finds that Lexa is looking at her with pure astonishment. “Uhm, last night, during our conversation?” she prompts, laughing uneasily when Lexa just continues to stare at her as if she’s seeing her for the first time. “The vow of devotion and whatnot?”

Lexa swallows, and she dimly registers Maya barely covering up some sort of noise—a . . . squeal?—beside her, but her attention is otherwise riveted to the way all the coldness she perceived earlier vanishes and is replaced by the usual heat of a dragon’s gaze.

“So,” Lexa says, and it seems she’s struggling with the effort of keeping an even expression, “you _do_ freely admit to being devoted to me?” Her tone seems a lot lighter compared to how it’s been since she arrived this morning; indeed, it is rather teasing, and yet lacing it is a far deeper and more earnest undertone. Something seems to saturate the air around them, then, heavy and light at the same time, something that seems new but is also devastatingly familiar.  

Clarke meets the dragon’s playful challenge against her better judgment, captivated by Lexa’s gaze. “Still not letting that go then, Your Grace?”

“Well, my lady—” _And why does she have to look so good with her smug smirk?_ —“like I told you, I don’t really know _how_ to let go. In fact, I tend to hold on to those I care about with every ounce of my being.”

Now it is Clarke who swallows, feeling that familiar tension cloak them. “And what is it that you care about?”

Lexa shrugs. “I have a lot. But as I also said last night”—her smirk then widens into a real smile—“we can always start with that vow of your devotion.”

And just like that the tension in the air is dispelled, and Clarke laughs, loud and free. “Well, if you insist, Your Grace,” she says, changing the answer she used to give, “who am I to refuse?”

She shakes her head exasperatedly at Lexa’s wink.

 

****

 

From that point on the day goes on pleasantly, and Clarke almost totally forgets the aggravating start her morning had.

 

****

 

 _Almost_.

 

****

 

“I’m still kind of mad at you, by the way.”

“I already apologized.”

“Lexa, you made me wait. _For food._ ” An irritated grumble. “No one makes me wait for food.”

A good-natured huff. “Fine, fine. Name your price.”

“Ha!” A mock-disdainful sniff. “My forgiveness is _earned_ , not merely purchased, Your Grace.”

“Ah, I see. Then perhaps my offer of giving you _anything_ you wish for can’t be accepted either?”

A beat. “Anything?”

“Within reason, of course.”

“All right.” A dramatic pause. “Those sweet tarts filled with blueberry jam.”

A thoughtful silence. “The ones especially made in Highgarden?”

“Yes, those ones.”

“All right.”

A noise of disbelief. “Wait, really?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I didn’t really expect you’d agree. Besides, Highgarden is kind of far.”

Lexa laughs a fond laugh. “You really should know better than underestimating me, Clarke.”

 

****

 

“The Small Council will start the meeting soon,” Lexa says, as soon as the plates are cleared away. Maya has retreated to a respectable distance, allowing her and Clarke some semblance of privacy.

“I thought Her Grace wanted it to be early,” Clarke comments.

“She’s known to make compromises for people she likes. Her Hand, for instance.”

Clarke chuckles. “Ah. Too much Dornish merlot, is it?”

“I fear Lord Tyrion has a habit of mixing his spirits,” says Lexa in a wry tone. “It’s perhaps only by the grace of the Seven that he’s even still breathing. That, or he might have made himself a deal with the Stranger.”

“Knowing Uncle Tyrion, I wouldn’t be too surprised if that turned out to be true,” Clarke allows. “Do you think he’ll divulge the secrets of his trade to his favourite niece?”

Lexa smiles at her, the tender smile that Clarke has always been fond of. “Knowing your uncle,” she says, “he would never do anything that could taint the purity of his beloved niece.”

And, well, Clarke is thankful to _Lexa_ ’s grace for not making a remark about the blush that spread rather quickly on her cheeks.

 

****

 

Daenerys doesn’t hide her smile the next time she sees her daughter that morning.

Alexandria’s steps have a spring in them that was missing earlier, and there is no sign of her previous anxiety. She’s smiling freely, just as she did when they were but powerless wanderers in Essos, and the emeralds of her eyes have softened into the early spring leaves.

“Hello, Mother,” she bids as soon as she enters the Small Council Chamber. She slides into the seat next to Arya, patting the Wolf Knight’s shoulder in greeting—something only she can do without risk of getting dismembered. She nods at the other occupants of the table—Ser Garlan Tyrell, Master of Coin; Lady Ellaria Sand, Mistress of Laws; Lord Marcus, Commander of the City Watch, is also there, along of course with Lord Varys, Master of Whispers.

“Where’s Lord Velaryon?” she asks, noting the absence of the Master of Ships.

“He’s attending to some business near Dragonstone, Your Grace,” answers Lord Varys.

“Ah.”

“You’re too . . . _jolly_ this morning,” Arya observes, her tone making the word sound like something particularly repulsive. She squints at the heir distrustfully. “Should I be concerned?”

Alexandria snorts. “Only if you have anything against lovely mornings and bright summer skies.” She pauses as if in thought. “Oh, wait. You do.”

Tyrion chortles into his fist, Missandei raises a hand to hide her smile, and Daenerys’s own smile grows into a full grin. The others purse their lips in a noble attempt of not outright laughing.

Arya glares at Tyrion, who hides behind his goblet, and shoots the queen a betrayed look before scowling at the Young Dragon. “I see how it is,” Arya says. “But then, what do I know about lovely mornings, anyway, when I woke up to the sound of Unsullied spears beating a rhythm against stone?”

Alexandria grows red at that, Daenerys notes with amusement, and she gapes at the Wolf. “Wha—”

“Alexandria, Arya,” Daenerys swiftly cuts in before the two make of themselves a remarkable impression of squabbling children, “may you please save your bickering for later.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

They trade glares again before composing themselves, settling more comfortably in their seats, and thus the Small Council’s meeting begins.

 

****

 

Lexa’s shoulders droop as soon as the door is closed, and she strides deeper into the room and then drapes herself across Clarke’s chaise longue. Clarke, who is seated before an easel, facing the window, curiously eyes her. She puts down her brush and gives Lexa her undivided attention when the Young Dragon lets out an irritated growl—the sound so startlingly similar to the ones her brothers make, a subtler but no less solid proof as to why she has earned and is deserving of her moniker.

Lexa has a frown on her pretty face as she grumbles, “How much do you think my mother would mind if I murder her Master of Coin in cold blood?”

Clarke chuckles and makes her way over the Dragon’s Heir, who sits up only to lie back down once Clarke is settled, laying her head on Clarke’s lap. Clarke replies helpfully, despite being (almost) sure that Lexa is jesting, “I’d say she’d be annoyed should Ser Garlan suddenly drop dead—he is efficient in his job, after all, and looking for another one suitable enough to take over his office would be a tedious task. Lady Margaery would be upset though, and you’d get a severe talking-to from Arya once she herself gets one from Lady Stark.” She arches an eyebrow, and she adds, “Aden will mourn his father’s loss too, and I don’t think you’re prepared enough to face his sad eyes, as mighty as you think you are.”

It is only when Aden’s name is mentioned that Lexa’s frown starts to fade. “I saw him earlier today, running around with leaves on his hair. Has he been venturing out the Keep?”

“He does have that habit, yes.”

“With no guard?”

“He knows how to lose his guards.”

Lexa shifts, looking up at her inquiringly. “And I don’t suppose you know where he learned that particular skill?”

“No,” Clarke answers quickly.

Too quickly, it turns out, for Lexa shakes her head in disbelief, chuckling. “Sure, Clarke.”

“Hmm.” Clarke clears her throat. “Whatever has Ser Garlan done to warrant his death, anyway?” she asks, changing the subject.

This does not escape Lexa’s notice, of course, but she indulges her nevertheless. “He’s wasting finances.”

Clarke unconsciously begins threading her fingers through Lexa’s brown hair. “I hardly think he’d do that. He’s a sensible man, taking his appointment as the honour that it is and ensuring he deserves it at every turn.”

“Whatever the case might be, he’s subjecting me to something I don’t want to do, and if there’s one thing I hate in this world, my lady, it is men subjecting me to things I don’t want to do.”

“Are you talking about the proposed tourney?” Lexa stares at her, surprise etched on her face. “Come on. News travel fast here, Lexa. As soon as the Master of Coin started making inquiries regarding certain structures and asking for estimates, people came to only one conclusion.” She shrugs. “The Heir’s Tourney is going to be the biggest one we’ve had in ages, and the people are appropriately excited for it.”

“Oh gods,” Lexa groans. “They’re calling it _my_ tourney now?”

“Well, it is to be thrown in _your_ honour.”

“It’s not like I asked for it.”

“That doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Don’t make me think reasonably. I’m too annoyed to be reasonable, Clarke.”

“All right, Your Grace.”

 

****

 

“I will feed him to Rhaegal.”

“I’ll tell Rhaegal not to.”

Lexa huffs. “You sound confident that he’ll listen.”

“You know he always listens to me, Lexa.”

Clarke laughs when Lexa does not offer a denial.

 

****

 

She strokes Lexa’s cheek affectionately, ignoring the swarm of butterflies that erupts in her stomach when the Dragon’s Heir lets out a sound that might be considered _purring_ . . . except she knows that Dragons do _not_ purr. “ _Zaldrīzo Ᾱnogar_ ,” Clarke whispers, “what would your people say if they saw their great dragonlord acting like this?”

“Doesn’t matter what they think, does it?” Lexa grins up at her. “I have no intention of letting anyone but you see me like this, after all.”

 

This time, it is Lexa who laughs, and Clarke doesn’t possess the wherewithal to even pretend to be upset.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ me: (ง •̀_•́)ง
> 
> PS shout-out to everyone unfortunate enough to suffer through _Blackfyre_! You guys are the best. Thanks for encouraging the lapse in self-control.
> 
> PPS I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Please manage your expectations for this thing. I don’t want to disappoint you. So if you’re looking for depth and cool plot™ things, this won’t satisfy you. This is purely for fun, my friends. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	11. VII. The Commander’s Fleet

 

In the following days, sworn knights and hedge knights, freeriders, and men-at-arms start coming into the capital in a steady stream, along with merchants and travelling whores and spectators from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms—all of them teeming with excitement for the Heir’s Tourney, as it has indeed come to be called by noble-born and smallfolk alike, much to the Heir’s displeasure.

Clarke finds it fascinating, how Lexa struggles to keep herself from frowning whenever she hears any mention of the tourney; the Heir might wish to stop the “non-sense” from ever being borne to fruition, but even she is not heartless enough to tear away her own people’s most anticipated event in recent history.

 

****

 

“A monarchy can only be as happy as its people,” Lexa tells her when she inevitably teases her about it, “and the people rely on the monarchy to ensure that happiness.”

Clarke looks at her without even trying to temper her awe. “You would make a wonderful queen.”

“I should hope so. To become my mother’s successor is already daunting as it is.” Lexa looks down, suddenly bashful. “I can only aspire to be someone that she would at least be proud of.”

“She already is,” Clarke points out, matter-of-fact, and when Lexa looks up, her answering grin is both hesitant and thrilled.

“You think so?”

“I _know_ so.” Clarke shrugs. “And as someone who has often talked at length with Her Grace about your accomplishments—before and after the war—I am a rather reliable source about this matter.”

Her words, it seems, are enough to erase whatever self-doubt Lexa feels. She leans closer to Clarke, bumping their shoulders together. “Why, my lady, I didn’t know you were that invested in my adventures,” she says, impish shade in her gaze. “Just how _often_ did you talk to my mother about me?”

Clarke groans in mock-annoyance, and the sound of Lexa’s laughter dances in the breeze. Her green eyes are brilliant beneath the capital’s sun, her smile wide and infectious, and Clarke finds that she doesn’t really care that she’s being teased yet again—not if Lexa would keep on looking like this, warm and jovial and every bit the girl who has always been her closest friend.

 

****

 

And so it is that the preparations for the tourney go underway. The Small Council convenes again to hammer out the details; with the Master of Coin’s assurance that the Crown can afford to loosen its purse’s strings, the Hand of the Queen is free to delegate tasks without fearing that he’d be causing the realm’s bankruptcy.

He gives Ser Marcus of the City Watch permission to hire a hundred new men to keep the Queen’s peace during this incredibly busy time, for the influx of visitors into the capital _can_ incite a spike in petty crimes. (He has studied the books, from previous tourneys. He is right.)

He asks Grey Worm to lend some of the Unsullied to the Watch until after the crowds have left. (Grey Worm stares at him unblinkingly for a long minute before finally acquiescing. Tyrion knows it’s really just out of principle, the principle, of course, being “Never let Tyrion forget about that time he almost destroyed Meereen.” Honestly, he makes a mess of things _one time_ and they never let him forget it!)

He appoints Ser Garlan to oversee arrangements for the tourney grounds, including hiring the carpenters and city planners. The Tyrells’ flair is just what Tyrion needs for this huge an occasion.

For the feasts, he enlists Missandei’s help, for there is no one’s palate he trusts more than hers. She is as exacting as a knife, her attention to details keen, and she has always been the most dependable of the Dragon Queen’s retinue when it comes to this kind of affairs.

“And me?” Arya asks after he has said his piece.

Tyrion rolls his eyes. “I just need you to keep doing your job and make sure Her Grace is safe.”

He need not see Arya’s smirk and the Queen’s small smile to know that his answer is an acceptable one.

“Is that all for today?” the Queen then asks.

“At least when it comes to the tourney, yes, Your Grace,” he replies. He turns to the other members of the council. “Are there other matters that need attending?”

“Just some news from Dragonstone,” says Varys. “I think it is something the princess would like to hear.”

At that Princess Alexandria, who has been a silent observer in today’s meeting but for a few times she has voiced some ideas (no doubt due to her own reticence about having a tourney in _her_ name, Tyrion reckons), tilts her head in silent query, raising her eyebrow in much the same way that Arya did.

“Ser Velaryon’s missive just arrived,” Varys reports. “An armada has been sighted passing Dragonstone and making its way to King’s Landing.”

The Dragon’s Heir then beams, her green eyes flashing with enthusiasm that comes with recognition. “Oh.”

The Queen nods, also catching on. Her smile widens at the face of her daughter’s obvious excitement. “It appears your fleet has at last returned, Alexandria.”

“It has,” Varys agrees, and he meets Tyrion’s eyes, “along with a dozen Volantene ships bearing the Targaryen sigil.”

Varys’s words are met with the Queen’s sharp gaze, which she then turns to Tyrion, warning clear in their lilac depths.

 

Tyrion bites back a groan.

 

****

 

The Warden of the North sits on the slab of stone beneath Winterfell’s heart tree, staring at the smooth surface of a pool as black as night.

(After the war, she found it difficult to sit still, to feel at peace. It was Arya who suggested she visit the godswood. “The old gods might not always answer,” Arya had said, “but they always listen.”

So Sansa heeded her advice, despite her reservations. She went to the heart tree, laid a cloak on the ground, and sat. She couldn’t quite bring herself to claim the stone which had always been their father’s place. Not yet.

But her spirit grew stronger with each visit. She prayed sometimes; others she just listened to the silence.

One day, she went and finally had enough courage to sit on the stone, and it felt like reclaiming Winterfell all over again.)

She can almost feel the old gods murmuring around her, their words carried in the spaces between each breath. Their eyes are ever watchful, here in this grove that has stood for a thousand years, and will stand for a thousand more.

It is here that her lord father had always gone after taking a life with the greatsword Ice, cleaning the blade with dark waters and a gentle touch. It is here that he had sought solace from the old gods, basking in their cold and quiet comfort. It is here that he had looked for some measure of peace, retreating from a household full of children with wolf’s blood.

She can almost imagine him, hunched over their family’s ancestral sword, his expression as solemn as ever, his features undeniably _Stark_. She closes her eyes, allows herself to remember his deep voice and his kind gaze and his rare smiles.

An old pain lances at her chest, sharp and quick. It is a familiar feeling, one she has whenever she recalls what her life has been like before . . . before everything.

She has learned to live with this pain, though, for it is the only way she can be sure that she will never, _ever_ forget, that not one face will go unremembered.

She owes the dead better than that.

 

****

 

She is seated still by the black pool, her hands folded on her lap—for there is no _Ice_ for her to clean, and even if there was, her hands are not for swords, anyway, never has been—when her wife comes looking for her. Margaery’s steps are slow and careful, keen as she is on not disturbing the quiet. Nightfrost, one of Nymeria’s daughters, treads noiselessly by her side.

“Sansa,” Margaery calls softly, stopping a few feet away. Nightfrost walks up to her master.

Sansa scratches the direwolf behind the ears before looking up at her wife, a small smile playing on her lips. She finds it endearing, how Margaery is always hesitant to make any sort of noise when in the godswood. It reminds her of her mother. Catelyn had been born in Riverrun and had been raised in the faith of the Sevenside; despite the years spent married to the lord of Winterfell, she had been a southron woman lost in the ways of the North.

And Margaery, the Rose of Highgarden, is as southron as it gets, no matter that she doesn’t really put that much stock into the gods, old or new.

“Margaery,” she says, and she tilts her head, a silent invitation.

Margaery complies with the request, folding her skirts aside to sit close to Sansa, and then tangling their fingers together. Nightfrost plops down by their feet, content to watch the tranquil waters of the pool.

They remain like that for several minutes, seated side by side, with only the gods whispering in the winds. Finally Margaery says, “A letter just came from the capital.”

Sansa nods. She has been expecting this, ever since the princess came to pick a blue winter rose. “What does it say?”

“A tourney will be held in the Heir’s honour. Garlan wants us to visit.”

“Do you want us to?”

Margaery is quiet for some time, thinking her answer through. “I have no love left for the place,” she finally settles on, and her grip on Sansa’s hand tightens, “but I would like to see my brother and nephew.”

Sansa hums. “Aden is what, seven now?”

“Yes.” Margaery loosens her grip. “Just at the right age to be fostered.”

“Your brother is still considering it, then?”

“Hmm.”

Sansa chuckles. “Won’t that be defeating the purpose though? The connection between our Houses is already established. You’re already my wife. There is no real reason for a Tyrell scion to be fostered by a Stark.”

“So your answer is no?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m merely asking why.” Sansa chuckles again when Margaery sighs, exasperated. “All right. I’ll just ask him that myself when we see him next.”

Margaery turns her head to look at her. “We’re going?”

“We are.” Sansa closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. The air in the godswood seems lighter, somehow. “It would be nice to see Arya again, too.”

“Who’s going to remain here, though?” Margaery lays her head on Sansa’s shoulder. “There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”

“I’ll summon Rickon,” Sansa answers. “He’s been on Bear Island for months. I think it’s time he tries to hold his place here.”

 

****

 

Young Crow stands on the bow of the ship, as taut as an arrow ready to fly. Any trace of humour is gone from her face; she is staring at King’s Landing with all the seriousness that has been missing from her before now. Her dark eyes are focused, her jaw clenched. She grips her satchel’s strap tightly, her knuckles turning white. The steel of her brace glints in the sun.

“Young Crow!” Luna calls from the deck. “Come on, we’re close!”

“Let her stay there,” she hears Anya say. “Maybe she’ll trip and go overboard. Then our problems will be solved.”

“ _Your_ problems, I think you mean,” Lincoln shoots back. “She’s not _our_ problem.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Young Crow tells them, finally turning away from the city she has only ever dreamt of seeing.

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Anya retorts. She is squinting at her, positioned as Young Crow is against the sun. Not that Anya needs the excuse; she’s either squinting suspiciously or outright glaring at Young Crow at any given time. Young Crow has learned to ignore that, and in fact is reveling in how she can aggravate the Commander’s Whip without even really trying.

“Be nice, Anya,” Lincoln says. It is a hopeless gesture, though appreciated just the same.

“We’re all aware that Anya is not capable of that, Lincoln,” Young Crow says with a grin. “She’s as wild as the stallion she rides, is she not?”

“We’re _Dothraki_ ,” Anya tells her with as much gravity as she can muster, frown deepening even further in aggravation, “we are wild by nature.”

Young Crow winks. “Don’t I know it.”

 

She laughs loudly at Anya’s frustrated growl, just as the watchtowers announce their arrival.

 

****

 

From the watchtowers in Blackwater Bay comes what sounds like a thousand horns and voices, the cacophony created more than enough to alert the capital that something huge is coming.

The smallfolk, though weary of surprises and are yet unsure if it’s something good or not, are filled with curiosity, and the street urchins are also keen for diversions from daily monotony. And so soon enough the streets leading to the bay are full of scuttling children and adults alike, all eager to catch sight of whatever it is the guards of the watchtowers have deemed enough of an irregularity to send the warning tones.

And what they have witnessed is indeed worth seeing—a sight magnificent enough to whet their excitement while waiting for the Heir’s Tourney.

 

A dozen warships with ornate gildings are at the fore of the approaching armada, which seemed to be consisting of a hundred vessels. Their figureheads are snarling tigers, cast with gold and bronze, and their shimmering green sails flutter gently in the summer winds.

On their banners, proud and unflappable, is the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen.

 

****

 

The Commander’s three bloodriders have taken their place by Alexandria’s side, but not before taking a girl—Young Crow, as Anya calls her—to meet Dany in her solar.

Arya sends Alexandria a questioning look when Young Crow bows before Dany, an awkward movement due to the brace in her left leg, but the Dragon’s Heir merely shrugs and smiles.

“Ah, so it really does run in your blood, then,” Young Crow says, standing in the Dragon Queen’s presence as if she belongs there. “The tales have always said that dragonlords were striking in their beauty, and seeing the Dragonspawn back in Essos—well, suffice it to say that she _is_ as comely as can be. And you, Your Grace, is as arresting as you are otherworldly.”

“Thank you,” Dany says, looking far too amused by this peculiar girl, whose accent is of a Volantene. A high-born one at that, if Arya were to guess. “Young Crow, is it?”

Young Crow nods, grinning. “Yes, Your Grace, that’s what they call me.”

“And why is that?”

“My clothes, I think,” she answers, gesturing to what she’s wearing—black pants, black boots, black shirt, black cloak.

“I see.” Dany nods. “And before that, what were you called?”

“Morgana Maegyr, from the house of Malaquo Maegyr,” is the confident answer, “a Tiger Triarch of Volantis.”

And then she fixes her stare at Arya, brave and steadfast as can be. Arya has not seen brown eyes glow before, except perhaps Jon’s, though his have been like dragonglass forged with the breath of winter. This girl’s, in comparison, are lighter and brighter, like the bark of a weirwood set aflame with the early summer sun.

Before anyone else can react, Young Crow adds, “Your brother Robb Stark took to wife my sister, Talisa Maegyr, which I believe makes us kin.”

 

It is the first time, in quite a while, that the Wolf Knight is rendered speechless.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I changed a paragraph’s placement (the one about the fleet). Sorry for whatever confusion that might have caused. If you felt like you’ve read that paragraph here before, that’s because you have.
> 
> ALSO HAHAHAHA HELLO I KNOW I’VE BEEN GONE I’M SORRY FOR BEING SHITTY AT UPDATING PLS FORGIVE ME
> 
> (just to clarify guys Young Crow is Raven ok she’s got the leg brace kk)

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me or something at [A Blank Canvas](http://agentjoannemills.tumblr.com/ask) or [@joampolin](https://twitter.com/joampolin). Let us all cry together.  
> Feedback is much appreciated; feelings fuel everything. :))  
> Ste yuj, fam.


End file.
